Reptiles

Exhibitions

Exhibition | NHM

Nature Lab

Live animals and hands-on interactives show you L.A.’s wild side.

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Events

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Child in yellow t-shirt with a name tag and holding up an insect encased in a yellow block on a stick

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Kids & Family Youth

Adventures in Nature Day Camp: Insect Investigators

Join us for bug-themed projects, up-close encounters with live bugs, time in the Museum’s expansive Nature Gardens and Nature Lab, and the chance to meet real museum entomologists!

Learn more

weekly

through 07/02/26

12:00 am

nhm

Kids & Family Youth

Adventures in Nature Day Camp: Insect Investigators

Join us for bug-themed projects, up-close encounters with live bugs, time in the Museum’s expansive Nature Gardens and Nature Lab, and the chance to meet real museum entomologists!

Learn more

weekly

through 07/02/26

12:00 am

nhm

Kids & Family Youth

Adventures in Nature Day Camp: Insect Investigators

Join us for bug-themed projects, up-close encounters with live bugs, time in the Museum’s expansive Nature Gardens and Nature Lab, and the chance to meet real museum entomologists!

Learn more

weekly

through 07/02/26

12:00 am

nhm

Kids & Family Youth

Adventures in Nature Day Camp: Insect Investigators

Join us for bug-themed projects, up-close encounters with live bugs, time in the Museum’s expansive Nature Gardens and Nature Lab, and the chance to meet real museum entomologists!

Learn more

weekly

through 07/02/26

12:00 am

Excavator sitting by a fossil at an excavation site, surrounded by children looking on

nhm

Adventures in Nature Day Camp: Paleo Tales

From dinosaurs to Ice Age animals, campers will make discoveries through paleo-inspired activities, meet paleontologists, and interact with real fossils!

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weekly

through 07/31/26

12:00 am

Stories

A small coquÍ frog in some beautiful foliage

The Songs of the Coquí Frog

The soothing sounds of home or a sonic menace? How you feel about the coquí's call depends on context, but when coquí frogs call in L.A. County, NHM's Herpetology Curator Dr. Greg Pauly answers.

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.

A Monster “Goblin” at the Feet of Dinosaurs

Meet the newly discovered giant, armored lizard named for the Hobbit’s goblin prince

A New Skink in Town

How an iNaturalist observation of a non-native lizard could help protect Southern California’s native species—and its economy

Rectangular stone with Maya glyph depicting a man holding a cacao plant. Campeche, Mexico. AD 600-900.

A Virtual Chocolate-y Tour of the Collections

Explore the collections of the Natural History Museum through the lens of chocolate!

Year of the Dragon

Celebrate the 2024 Lunar New Year, Year of the Dragon, with highlights from the collection

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Night of Ideas 2020 - Animal Meet and Greet with Leslie Gordon

NHMLAC Discovery Talk with Leslie Gordon

Meet Leslie Gordon, our Manager of Vertebrate Living Collections, and watch her share what her team has been up to during the museum's temporary closure, including telemedicine and museum walkabouts.

Herpetology

The Museum's collection of amphibians and reptiles contains approximately 190,000 catalogued specimens from around the globe.

Community Science

Community science (sometimes called citizen science) mobilizes volunteers to work alongside scientists to help answer questions about the world.

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Resources

News & Press

From Mosasaurs to Snakes and Lizards, “Megafilters” Shape Reptile Fossil Collections

The environment and the durability of their bones are the drivers behind which reptiles—and which parts of reptiles—end up shaping museum collections and our understanding of the fossil record.

Discovery of Bolg amondol, a name inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings universe, reveals the complex evolutionary history of giant Gila Monster relatives

A new study finds that land-dwelling crocodile-like sebecids were the apex predators of the West Indies, surviving on the islands after vanishing from South America

A Lighthouse in the Gobi Desert

A new study quantifies the impact of the world’s great fossil sites on our understanding of evolutionary relationships between fossil groups and discovers the key to understanding lizard evolutionary history in the Gobi Desert.