BE ADVISED: Due to nearby events on Friday, April 4, parking and traffic around the Natural History Museum will be impacted. Parking for First Fridays is available at the Blue Visitor Parking Structure, located at 39th St and Figueroa St in Exposition Park. Please plan your visit accordingly, and consider using rideshare or public transportation.

working on fossil dinosaur institute paleontology

Browse by Topic

Fossils

Exhibitions

Dinosaur Hall

Step Into Our Award-winning Exhibition, and Enter the Age of Dinosaurs

Learn more

Stories

Solving a Juniper Seed Mystery at La Brea Tar Pits

How identifying a mysterious fossil seed reveals Ice Age climate change

A paleoart rendition of Eupachydiscus sp. by Cullen Townsend.

Collections Staff Help Ammonites Come Out of Their Shells

Uncovering how digitization and collections management made a groundbreaking extinction study come to life

Closeup of light green skeleton head with neck and top of torso in the background

Meet LA's Gnewest Star: Gnatalie the Green Dino

NHM Commons—the Museum’s new wing and community hub—will welcome visitors this fall with, among other wonders, the newest and biggest fossil Angeleno: Gnatalie.

Walking With Giant Sloths

Take a (virtual) summer road trip to White Sands National Park to explore the fossilized tracks of giant ground sloths

Wonder Is in Our Bones

How giant fossils expand the dimensions of our imagination

Launch pad for the Ariane 6 for Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana

Spaceport Fossils from French Guiana

How one small step for a spaceport in French Guiana led to a giant leap for Pleistocene fossils

Discover more

Scientists hiking a mountainous trail to a cave in the distance.

Gypsum Cave

The holotype skeleton of the extinct aquatic herbivore Neoparadoxia cecilialina from the Monterey Formation of Orange County.

Vertebrate Paleontology

Vertebrate Paleontology is the study of ancient animals that have a vertebral column including fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.

Project Paleo

Do you want to be a paleontologist? Do you want to be a curator of natural history collections? Project Paleo is your opportunity to work with fossils and contribute to the curation of Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County's collections.