Our museums remain closed due to COVID-19. While LA County Public Health has entered Phase 3 of the Roadmap to Recovery, allowing for the reopening of museums on June 12, our museums are still slowly welcoming back staff and are in the process of planning for new health and safety protocols in our galleries and gardens. Therefore, we will not be reopening until later in the summer. Sign up here to be the first to know when we will safely re-open to the public and in the meantime, stay connected from home.

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Oceans

Exhibitions

Frozen in Time: Images of Antarctica

See the frigid continent of Antarctica in a new light through the mesmerizing work of award-winning photographer Diane Tuft.

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Events

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Wed

Sep

Happy Hour with Dr. Todd Clardy

After-Hours Fellows Special Program Talks

5:30 pm

Join Dr. Todd Clardy, Ichthyology Collections Manager, as he explores the bizarre ecology and biology of the early developmental stages of fish, and the diversity of their adult forms.

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Stories

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.

Our Time-Traveling Marine Biologist

Austin Hendy has big plans

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Los Angeles Urban Ocean Expedition

The Natural History Museum is leading a two-week expedition to the urban ocean waters of the Los Angeles region to dramatically improve our knowledge of Southern California marine biodiversity.

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.