Los Angeles has a brand-new star, and she is green, gorgeous and more than 75 feet long. Meet Gnatalie, the extraordinary dinosaur now welcoming visitors in NHM Commons, the new wing and community hub of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in Exposition Park.
Gnatalie, pronounced “nat-ah-lee,” is a long-necked sauropod, a Diplodocus-like dinosaur that lived about 150 million years ago, during the Late Jurassic — long before Tyrannosaurus rex walked the Earth. Her mount, assembled from multiple specimens of the same newly identified species, is the most complete sauropod skeletal mount on the West Coast.
What makes her a world first is her color. Gnatalie is the only green-colored fossil specimen on the planet. Her bones turned a dark, mottled olive green because the mineral celadonite filled them during fossilization, a rare process that usually destroys buried bones instead of preserving them.
Researchers from the Museum’s Dinosaur Institute, led by Dr. Luis Chiappe, discovered the quarry in 2007 in Southeast Utah. The diggers were pestered by stinging gnats the whole time — and that is exactly how Gnatalie got her playful name, chosen by public vote in June 2024.
After years of careful preparation by the Dinosaur Institute team, Gnatalie now stretches across the Judith Perlstein Welcome Center, where anyone can see her for free, with or without a museum ticket. Pair your visit with the famous Dinosaur Hall nearby, and you have one of the happiest science outings in Los Angeles.
Photo: Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
