About Page Museum La Brea Tar Pits

Rancho La Brea is one of the world’s most famous fossil localities, recognized for having the largest and most diverse assemblage of extinct Ice Age plants and animals in the world. Visitors can learn about Los Angeles as it was between 11,000 and 40,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age, when animals like saber-toothed cats and mammoths roamed the Los Angeles Basin. At the glass-walled Fossil Lab, visitors can watch bones being cleaned and repaired. Outside the Museum, guests will find several active fossil excavations, where new discoveries are made every day. The La Brea Tar Pits Museum is part of a Family of Museums that includes the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County downtown in Exposition Park and the William S. Hart Museum in Newhall, CA.