La Brea Tar Pits museum will remain closed until further notice. The park at La Brea Tar Pits is currently open and visitors can currently see paleontologists working at our excavation site weekly. See NHMLAC's response to coronavirus (COVID-19).

Photo of paleontologist excavating fossils

Browse by Topic

Excavations

Exhibitions

Onlookers watch scientists in the Fossil Lab

What happens after the fossils at La Brea Tar Pits are excavated? This is where you find out.

Image of mammoths

Travel back in time with Titans of the Ice Age.

Stories

View More

Photograph of the Dino Hall exhibit

Virtual Tour of Dino Hall - Mandarin Chinese

A virtual visit to the Age of Dinosaurs

Clear glass drug bottle from turn of the century

Message From A Bottle

Finds from Exposition Park excavations reveal past lives.

Preparator James Preston working on fossils from home.

A Different Kind of Prepping

For Vertebrate Paleontology Preparator James Preston, science doesn’t stop.

mammoth exhibit tar pits mammoths and mastodons

Meet Hayden, the Metro Mammoth

A juvenile mammoth that was discovered during a dig for the new Metro

Woolly Rhino in the snow.

Woolly Rhino Fossil with Xiaoming Wang

Our researchers make exciting discoveries all over the world

Summer of Sloths

Sloths Make a Splash

La Brea Tar Pits Assistant Curator Emily Lindsey and a team of researchers found a treasure trove of giant ground sloth specimens

Discover more

Future Paleontologist

Dig up the past as you discover the science of the fossil’s journey from excavation to our col

Read more

Tar Pits in Peru

Our Expeditions

Our goal is to foster integrative research collaborations at asphaltic fossil localities around the world.

Read more