On Friday, Sept. 4, the Natural History Museum will close early at 3 pm due to the USC game at the Coliseum. Expect street closures, traffic, and limited parking in Exposition Park. Visitors are strongly encouraged to take the Metro E Line to the Expo Park/USC station.

Raccoons of Early Los Angeles

A rare fossil raccoon at Project 23

A Modern-Day Mammal in Prehistoric Los Angeles

Try to picture the Pleistocene world, and megafauna like saber-toothed cats, mammoths or giant ground sloths might come to mind, but mammals we see every day (or every night) lived among those extinct giants. Join fossil preparators from La Brea Tar Pits for a journey from discovery to reconstruction of a rare find from Project 23: a fossilized raccoon. They'll take you through the process of preparing this special find and some of the reasons raccoons are so rare at the Tar Pits.