BE ADVISED: On Sunday March 15, the parking lot at La Brea Tar Pits will be closed at 3 pm. Alternative parking structures are located at the nearby SAG-AFTRA building and the Petersen Automotive Museum. For questions or directions, please call 213.763.3466 or email info@nhm.org.

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Dire Wolves

Exhibitions

Ice Age Encounters

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Stories

Uncovering L.A.'s Ice Age Past

Take a dip into the science of the tar pits in this video, a rare look under the surface at the fossilized bones of Ice Age predators, from dire wolves to mighty mammoths.

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

Bloomberg Connects Header Image depicting the screen of a guide user

Digital Guide to La Brea Tar Pits

Explore La Brea Tar Pits—including the new Mark Dion exhibit Excavations—as well as over 160 international museums, galleries, sculpture parks, gardens, and cultural spaces on our Bloomberg Connects free digital guide.

Life reconstruction of fire at La Brea Tar Pits during the Pleistocene as bison are stuck during a wildfire

Why Did the Ice Age Titans Go Extinct?

A new study reveals that human impacts in an environment made fire-prone by climate change and herbivore loss led to large mammals vanishing from southern California.

Geek Out in an Ice Age Daydream

Tar AR brings Ice Age animals back to L.A.

Mammoths, meet the metaverse

Paleontologists from La Brea Tar Pits develop a whole herd of scientifically accurate extinct animals to use in AR and VR

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A researcher in a white lab coat returns a fossil to a shelf in a row of compact shelving

Samuel Oschin Global Center
for Ice Age Research

A New Scientific Research Hub

News & Press

La Brea Tar Pits to Launch the Samuel Oschin Global Center for Ice Age Research as a Highlight of Its Major Campus Transformation

A landmark gift from the Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Oschin Family Foundation advances the complete reimagining of one of Los Angeles’s most iconic scientific, cultural, and community sites

New renderings from WEISS/MANFREDI reveal updated plans to transform the museum and park on Wilshire Blvd