New research with an eye towards microfossils has revealed a stunning diversity and abundance of small mammals, and studies of associated sediments have uncovered new taphonomic environments that preserved clues to their behaviors and broader ecological context.

La Brea Tar Pits is an active paleontological research site in urban Los Angeles. Hancock Park was formed around a group of tar pits where natural asphalt (also called asphaltum, bitumen, or pitch; brea in Spanish) has seeped up from the ground for tens of thousands of years.

The La Brea Tar Pits have yielded fossils of over 650 species of animals, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. They are an important scientific site and provide scientists with a unique window into the past, helping us to understand the …

Sep 27, 2023 · The La Brea Tar Pits preserve animals that have roamed North America for 50,000 years, including camels, bison, mountain lions, dire wolves, grizzly bears, saber-toothed cats, horses, mammoths, gray wolves, and mastodons.

Dire wolves are the most common large mammals from La Brea Tar Pits, with about 4,000 individuals represented in its collections. The remains of over 2,000 individual saber-toothed cats rank second and coyotes rank third.

The plants and animals at Rancho La Brea make up one of the world's richest and most diverse late Pleistocene fossil collections! The diversity of species, the quality of preservation, and the large numbers of specimens makes this collection invaluable for the study and understanding of ecological change over the past 50,000 years.

Many of the animal fossil species found in the La Brea Tar Pits still exist today. Among these are coyotes, dogs, mountain lions, gray foxes, bobcats, rabbits, black bears, raccoons, mice and skunks. There are also grasshoppers, termites, gopher snakes, garter snakes, the western rattlesnake, the western pond turtle, rainbow trout, frogs ...

May 21, 2024 · The La Brea Tar Pits remain one of the most famous landmarks in Los Angeles. They are accompanied by scale models of mammoths, and the associated museum contains models of sloths, saber-tooth cats, and other animals, as well as numerous mounted fossils.

In the middle of the city of Los Angeles lies one of the most important fossil sites in all the world. The La Brea tar pits preserve an Ice Age eden beyond the grip of the huge glaciers that leveled North America.

The La Brea tar pits (or Rancho La Brea) are a famous cluster of tar pits in central Los Angeles. Complete skeletons of many thousands of large animals have been found here. They date mostly from 40,000 to 8,000 years ago.