Exhibits
Current malacological exhibits
are located on the mezzanine in the west stairwell of the museum between the
1st and 2nd floors. Displays include a sampling of familiar mollusks of southern
California; common species of the Panamic Faunal Province (central Baja California
to northern Peru); endangered mollusks (mostly freshwater and terrestrial species);
rare shells including the Golden Cowry, Lyncina aurantium (Gmelin,
1791) and the Glory-of-the-Sea Cone, Conus gloriamaris Chemnitz, 1777;
and an exhibit of contrasting sizes of large and minute species including a
Giant Clam, Tridacna gigas (Linnaeus, 1758), Australian Spindle, Syrinx
aruanus (Linnaeus, 1758), Minute turton clam, Turtonia minuta
(Fabricius, 1780), and minute gastropod Amphithalamus inclusus Carpenter,
1864.
An exhibit entitled "Museum Treasures" in the Director's Gallery features 5 specimens of rare pleurotomariid slit shells including: Perotrochus hirasei (Pilsbry, 1903), P. lucaya Bayer, 1966, P. midas Bayer, 1966, P. westralis (Whitehead, 1987), and P. teramachii Kuroda, 1955.
Education
Malacology staff is involved in several educational programs in partnership with the Education Division of LACM:
Malacology curator Ángel
Valdés helps participants to discover the fascinating world of nudibranchs
in SPECTACULAR SEA SLUGS! The program begins with a behind-the-scenes tour of
the vast collections of the Malacology Section of the Natural History Museum
of Los Angeles County. A nudibranch dissection and scanning electron microscope
session follows. 
The
program is concluded with a tidepool excursion on the Palos Verdes Peninsula
to see nudibranchs and other marine invertebrates up close and personal (right).
Because not all mollusks are living … FOSSIL HUNTING IN SILVERADO CANYON lead by Malacology Collection Manager Lindsey T. Groves and Invertebrate Paleontology Research Associate LouElla Saul allows participants to see what marine life was like in the Late Cretaceous (Turonian age) 89-91 million years ago in the LA Basin. In fact the Turonian age may represent one of the warmest periods in California’s geologic past. Fossils are collected from the Baker Canyon and Holz Shale members of the Ladd Formation, Santa Ana Mountains, Orange Co., California (left).