Natural History Museum

Natural History Museum. . , , Los Angeles' "Smithsonian" , To those who believe Los Angeles has no past - welcome to the Natural History Museum. , Here is California in the age of reptiles - not the Hollywood kinds, but the real thing, like the California plesiosaur, the enormous sea-going reptile whose bones were extricated from Fresno County in 1940. , But Hollywood does have a place here: blond curls snipped from the head of actress Mary Pickford, and Fred Astaire's two shoes, are rotated through the exhibition cases, too. , Southern California history didn't begin with the movies. The place was still ocean bottomland when carnivorous dinosaurs strode the Earth, but for close to a century the Natural History Museum has gathered creatures and curiosities from across time and space and place, for the enlightenment and entertainment of children and grown ups alike. , To this day, Los Angeles' most famous fossil repository, the La Brea Tar Pits, yields the fossils skeletons of ancient big cats with teeth like steak knives, and furless Columbian mammoths, warm-weather cousins of woolly mammoths. , But the stars of the soaring Dinosaur Hall are skeletons from other climes and times - the fabled Tyrannosaurus rex, the odd-looking Triceratops, and the long-necked Mamenchisaurus sauropod. , The First, The Biggest, The Only , When the museum opened in 1913, its domed roof made it the most beautiful of the buildings framing Exposition Park's rose garden. , It was then a repository of bones and birds' nests, pottery and branding irons - and most important, a place to store and exhibit the skeletons of extinct animals just being excavated from the ooze of the La Brea Tar Pits. , For the opening day gala, the city's founding families donated recent relics like porcelain and opium receptacles. , When the museum opened, its director said "We have scarcely begun our work." He was right. , Nearly a hundred years of rotating exhibitions have put before the wondering eyes of visitors so many objects that the place could fairly be called "Los Angeles' Smithsonian". , Among the treasures shown over time: the largest gold nugget ever found in California - nearly ten pounds - and diamond earrings, about 18 carats each, that once dangled from the ears of Queen Marie Antoinette of France. Compared to that exotica, "Chris", in the African Mammal Hall, is practically a member of the family. The silverback gorilla lived in the Los Angeles Zoo and after he died was put on permanent exhibit. , Lions And Tigers And... Bugs, Oh My! , Visitors can trail along the exhibitions on California history and Native American cultures, marvel at a display of rocks and minerals, and worm their way to the Insect Zoo. In 1992, a thousand red ants were set to work in a giant ant farm. They dug yards of interlocking tunnels - and unlike most modern builders, finished four days ahead of deadline for the exhibit's grand opening. , The Insect Zoo answers questions like why the tropical brown widow spider - the only one ever found in these climes - is twice as deadly as her black counterpart. Another dangerous spider - this one existing only on film - descended from the rotunda dome in 2002 film "Spider-Man" to bite actor Tobey Maguire and turn him into a superhero. , The museum has treasures in its enormous and priceless pre-1940s collection of film memorabilia, including Lon Chaney's makeup kit and a sketch from the set of "Citizen Kane." , Not on display but available to scholars are the million plus items in the Seaver Center for Western History Research: books, photographs, posters, maps, court records, and such documents as the 19th-century method for discouraging voter fraud: a handwritten identification log describing voter's physical irregularities, like Irish immigrant Richard Dwyer and his missing left foot. , The Natural History Museum's treasures span from before the Jurassic to the jet-age, and visitors can spend a million years there - in a single day.