Finding dinosaur fossils is not something even veteran paleontologists experience every day. Our crews find fossils on about half of the job sites they work, but they simply don’t encounter many dinosaurs here in southern California. It’s not to say these beasts didn’t roam the area—surely they did—but the circumstances for the preservation of their remains were not ideal here. Read more.

Dr. Jon Rebman, Museum curator and the Mary & Dallas Clark Endowed Chair of Botany, spent 10 months in La Paz, Baja California Sur as part of a work assignment. While there, he increased binational collaboration with Mexican scientists and students, conducted extensive botanical research in the southern part of the Baja California peninsula, and wrote a new bilingual, plant field guide for the Cape region.  Read more.

The death of an animal as majestic as a whale is a sad event. However, as Museum scientists interested in documenting the natural biodiversity of our region--and in increasing our understanding of the evolutionary and ecological history of that biodiversity--we view such events as learning opportunities. Read more.  Read more.

In 1908, the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at Berkeley mounted an expedition to the San Jacinto Mountain region, pioneering the exploration of southern California’s biology. On the 100th Anniversary of this expedition, from 2008 to 2010, the San Diego Natural History Museum retraced its path to see how the area’s wildlife has changed over the last century. This blog details one of the key findings of the San Jacinto centennial resurvey, the Gray Vireo.   Read more.

It’s not every day that a new species of porpoise is introduced to the scientific world. However, that’s what happened when a team of paleontologists, including representatives from the San Diego Natural History Museum, discovered the fossil remains of a 3 million year old animal with a unique skull anatomy not represented in any living or fossil dolphin or porpoise.   Read more.