San Diego Natural History Museum Paleontology Department

03/15/2022

03/05/2022

Science News Alert! 👇

05/24/2021

CT scans of a 25 million year-old fossil skull show the Aetiocetus weltoni had both teeth and baleen, unlike modern whales.

04/16/2021

Scientists used the fossil record of T. rex and the principles of population ecology to estimate dinosaur demographics and the chances of finding an extinct animal in the fossil record.

02/09/2021

How can All Things Considered consider all things without considering dinosaurs? That's the question posed by 8-year-old Leo Shidla of Minneapolis.

12/12/2019

A message from the lab.

05/10/2019

As written in today's op-ed: We need to add a caveat to Jeff Goldblum’s famous line in “Jurassic Park,” “Life finds a way,” when we give it a chance.

Nature conservation should not just be the responsibility of a few government agencies and nonprofits. It needs to be integrated into economic development plans, human health policy, and more.

01/31/2019

Curious about the state of our local ? Join us at the 2nd Annual State of Symposium coming up on Wednesday, February 6. will share info on emerging threats, current , and more. Tickets to this day-long event are still available and can be purchased at www.sdnat.org/stateofbiodiversity.

01/08/2019

Have you seen today's ? It's an illustration drawn by a second-grader who wants to be a when she grows up. Adorable!

Rock out with the 2018 winner "Dino Doodle" by Sarah Gomez-Lane! 🦖🦕

04/28/2017

Tickets for this Saturday's NATtalk are sold out. However, we have decided to open up a limited amount of virtual tickets for folks to join via live stream. Registration required. Click below to sign up.

Join the authors of the manuscript titled “A 130,000-year-old archaeological site in southern California, U.S.A.” that is scheduled to be published in the April 27 issue of the prestigious science journal Nature.

04/27/2017

A little to 1992 ... and 130,000 years ago!

04/27/2017

Yesterday was a big day! So excited to finally share our amazing discoveries from the site - a 130,000 year old site right here in San Diego that documents the earliest evidence of human activity in the Americas.

A new study has dropped a bombshell on archaeology, claiming signs of human activity in the Americas far earlier than thought.

12/22/2016

: Special thanks to PaleoServices Report Writer Shelly Donohue for digging up this gem. This is the first holiday card sent to our PaleoServices clients back in the day. Can you guess what year this was taken?

09/09/2016

These dainty crab fossils were uncovered by ’s paleontologists, in partnership with Caltrans, during construction along I-5 near Genesee Avenue. Believe it or not, these crabs were scurrying along the ocean floor about 46 million years ago, when this part of our region was submerged under water.

05/20/2016

Happy ! Today we are at a construction site in downtown San Diego's East Village, dry screening fossiliferous sandstones of the San Diego Formation (~3.5 - 1.5 million years old). So far we’ve salvaged oysters, snails, sand dollars, barnacles, and a bone from a yet-to-be-identified marine mammal.

04/27/2016

Yesterday we said bon voyage to our lead fossil preparator, Nikki Anderson! For the last 4 years Nikki has been our fearless leader in the prep lab, teaching us how to better jacket and prepare fossils, all while making us laugh, humming great tunes, and setting a new standard for efficiency and organization in the lab. Nikki prepared hundreds of fossil specimens ranging from shells of marine clams and snails, to tiny lizard jaws, to giant bison skulls. Good luck on all of your adventures, Nikki! We sure are going to miss you.