Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology

08/31/2026

Alf Museum x NHMLA = awesome! Its been a fun couple of weeks for the Alf Museum crew as we participated in two really great events at NHMLA!

Last week, Alf Museum curator, Dr. Mairin Balisi, joined other experts to weigh in and discuss which prehistoric creature would come out on top at Prehistoric Fight Night!

And yesterday, our high school paleontologists from The Webb Schools and museum staff got to share the Alf Museum's important dinosaur finds at NHMLA's annual Dino Fest!

Thanks to our neighbors and friends at NHMLA for inviting us and we look forward to the next one!

08/27/2026

Dinosaur Parenting 101 with Allison! Meet high school paleontologist, Allison, and watch her science story she created as part of the Honors Paleontology program!

Learn about dinosaur parenting with high school paleontologist, All...

08/22/2026

It’s Dino Day at the Gilb Museum! We had a wonderful time talking about the many dinosaurs at the Alf Museum and teaching junior paleontologists how to prepare fossils. Thanks so much to the Gilb Museum for inviting us!

08/19/2026

It was a fun afternoon in the Alf Museum as we welcomed this year’s incoming The Webb Schools 9th graders! The new students got to meet the museum crew, see all the museum labs and collections, and learn about the history and legacy of the Alf Museum that they are now a part of! Welcome Webbies! We can’t to see what you all accomplish over your time here The Webb Schools and the Alf Museum!

Webb Alums! What was your first memory of the Alf Museum?

08/12/2026

The Alf Museum will be closed on Saturday, August 15, for a campus event. We will reopen on Wednesday, August 19, for regular museum hours.

08/07/2026

Hips really don’t lie when it comes to human evolution! Thanks so much to Dr. Austin Lawrence for sharing his really exciting research with us at Moments of Time! It was so much getting to see the fossil casts you brought and we know the audience enjoyed it as well.

That does it for our summer events, but stay tuned because we have plenty more events coming soon!

08/05/2026

Discover the story of us! Join the Alf Museum tonight as we welcome our Moments of Time speaker, Dr. Austin Lawrence from Western University. Learn about his research into the hip bones and the evolution of early humans!

Doors open at 6:30pm, presentation starts at 7:30pm.
$9 admission, purchase online or at the door.

https://alfmuseum.myshopify.com/collections/programming

07/29/2026

Alf Museum curator, Dr. Mairin Balisi, is featured in this new article that discusses the possible demise of Smilodon by looking at disease in their spines!

“This might be how extinction happens,” Balisi says. “You start getting smaller population sizes and more isolated populations, resulting in less genetic diversity and more inbreeding.”

Read more here:

Remains pulled from the La Brea Tar Pits revealed deformed vertebrae and rare tumors, possible signs of inbreeding among now-extinct saber-toothed cats.