Stories

Welcome to Stories, a place to explore—and be inspired by—the wonder of our natural and cultural worlds.

A life-like painting of a large lizard lurking over a nest of dinosaur eggs with one already in its mouth

2025 Excavated: A Look Back at Some of the Biggest NHM Discoveries

From prehistoric giant lizards and ancient raccoons to newly discovered spiders and heroic extinct dugongs, NHMLAC researchers had a busy year describing new species. Meet some of the coolest creatures our researchers described this year, along with other inspiring discoveries.

Fossil tree limb with a fossil bird on top of it framed by demolished wall

Research and Collections

Fossil Trees Help Grow Our Understanding of Ancient Climate

A new study reveals how ancient trees from La Brea Tar Pits helped warm the planet during the last ice age by coughing up CO2

An illustration of an American lion and saber-toothed cat

Meet Biggest Big Cat at the Tar Pits: The American Lion

Get up close and personal with the fiercest Ice Age Angeleno

The lower jaw of a dire wolf from La Brea Tar PIts resting on a piece of paper with the words "Last known real dirw wolf in the world!!" Aenocyon dirus lower jaw 13,082 years old' written on it

Dire Wolves: Sorry, They’re Totally Still Extinct

NHM and Tar Pits experts weigh in on why dire wolves have not, in fact, been successfully cloned, and the surprising perils of de-extinction

Illustration of ice age bird, the teratorn.

Meet Teratorn, the Largest Bird Found at La Brea Tar Pits

The teratorn was undoubtedly big, but was it a big vulture or something else?

Solving a Juniper Seed Mystery at La Brea Tar Pits

How identifying a mysterious fossil seed reveals Ice Age climate change

Walking With Giant Sloths

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

An adult petroleum fly Helaeomyia petrolei taken with a keyence microscope

Get Stuck on Petroleum Flies

KQED’s Deep Look gets up close and personal with the Tar Pits most successful (and smallest) predator

AR sloth and Sid the sloth from Ice Age movie

What kind of giant sloth is Sid from the Ice Age movies?

Our paleontologists get to the bottom of Sid the giant sloth’s species

Planting the Ice Age

Here are 5 reasons to plant your own Ice Age Garden, and preserve 60,000 years of biodiversity!

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