Stories

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

Fire north of Montrose-La Crescenta, November 1933.
Research and Collections
How Los Angeles Moved Uncomfortably Close to Mountain Wildfires
A look at L.A.'s growth toward wildfires through historic images from the Seaver Center
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Meraxes_reconstruction_Papolio
Research and Collections
Jurassic Perks
How Jurassic Park helped spark a boom in new dinosaur discoveries
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Genus Pseudopotamilla polychaete by Leslie Harris
Research and Collections
An Ocean of Worms
Discover an underwater world of incredible marine worms in the ancient rocks off L.A.’s coast
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Canthigaster_smile fish from St. Helena
Research and Collections
Stepping Stones Across Oceans
NHM’s Ichthyology Curator visits two remote islands to understand how fish move around our planet.
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Indian common crow butterfly observation from iNaturalist
Research and Collections
The Beginnings of Butterflies
A sweeping new study by over 80 scientists including NHM researcher Vijay Barve identifies that butterflies originated in North or Central America 100 million years ago.
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Native CA insects arranged into a mandala
Research and Collections
Bugs For Life
NHM researchers’ ambitious plan to DNA barcode every insect species in CA—before it’s too late
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Allen's hummingbird gorget magnified at 100x
Research and Collections
There's a Feather for That
Bird Curator Allison Shultz lays out the surprising powers of plumage and how understanding feathers helps humans—and helps humans to help birds.
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Miner, fuzz, macro, yellow, wing
Research and Collections
Big Bee Bonanza
Help digitize NHM's bee collections and keep bees buzzing with this crowd-sourced community science project
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SEM scan of a brittle star
Research and Collections
Think Small With SEM
Seeing the big picture with tiny specimens and one powerful scanning electron microscope
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Biodiversity Week 2022 Header Image
Research and Collections
Biodiversity in L.A. Backyards
A week's worth of spotlighting species (and some ways you can help) in recognition of California's Biodiversity Week, September 7–15, 2024.
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