Natural History Museum Cancels Gala for Opening of China Exhibit

The Los Angeles County Museum of Natural history has canceled a gala party originally scheduled for Friday night’s opening of a new exhibit of fossils from China, billed as the most comprehensive such display ever shown outside of Asia.

But the exhibit, “From the Land of Dragons,” will open Saturday for its full-scheduled run through Oct. 15, the museum said.

Craig Black, the museum’s director, said the party was canceled “in light of the events in China and the loss of life there.” Black said the fossil exhibit is part of an ongoing museum exchange with China.

The museum said the future of the exchange program has been cast in doubt by the current crisis in China. Black said he ordered the party canceled because he was “saddened and shocked by the action of the Chinese government taken against its students and peaceful demonstrators in Beijing and elsewhere.”

The exhibit will include fossils of dinosaurs and flying reptiles. It includes 42 specimens, of both carnivorous and plant-eating species.

The exhibit was accompanied by four Chinese scholars from the Beijing Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology. The four are installing the displays in the Exposition Park museum. The Natural History Museum said the four would remain in Los Angeles until June 18, as scheduled.