Our Butterfly Pavilion and Nature Gardens are now open, and tickets are sold out for the season. The inside of the museum remains closed. Advanced timed-tickets are required for members and non-members. See NHMLAC's response to coronavirus (COVID-19).

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Oceans

Stories

Fishes Across America: Shoshone, California

Hit the road from your home and dive into the biodiversity of freshwater fishes across the U.S.

How to DISCO at Home

Creativity powers the DISCO team, no matter where the lab is.

Bloomers and Swimmers

On Endangered Species Day, our fish curator and garden director talk about the imperiled species under our care.

There's Climate History at the Bottom of the Ocean

Looking at ocean sediments reveals how Earth has changed over time.

Netting Specimens in Costa Rica

Not your average kind of fishing trip

Big Ocean Animal Alert

When one species declines or disappears, an entire ecosystem could be at risk of profound transformation or collapse.

Discover more

Marine Biodiversity Center

Most species on Earth are animals, and most animals are invertebrates, so most of the Earth’s astonishing biodiversity is in the invertebrate animals. The Marine Biodiversity Center is the museum’s core facility for the curation of these remarkable animals. Collections come to the museum from a variety of research projects and government agencies.

abalone cove beach southern california daytime

DISCO

An ongoing program at the Natural History Museum aims to develop research and monitoring tools to enormously accelerate our ability to discover and investigate marine invertebrate biodiversity of California’s nearshore waters.

Past Projects

While NHM is not currently working on these projects, they have influenced our current community science projects.

Life in the Ocean

Our researchers are devoted to better understanding our coastal communities — both now and in the past — and the thousands of animals that live (or lived) there.