Story Topics | La Brea Tar Pits

An elephant, tapir, saber-toothed cat, llama, and pecarry face off with a pair of giant sloths, a pair of armadillos, a big rodent, and a terror bird, the former on the North American side and the latter on the South America; a globe is in the top left

Research and Collections

10-million-year-long Mammal Layover in Mexico Primed the Pump for the Great American Biotic Interchange Between North and South America

Published in the journal Science, a new study by NHM researchers shows that Mexico acted as a biodiversity "holding pen" for 10 million years ahead of the Great American Biotic Interchange that opened the floodgates between North and South America 2.8 million years ago.

A femur bone fossil sitting in asphalt, next to a half-buried sloth rib

Research and Collections

The Beasts of Pampa La Brea, a Peruvian Tar Pit

Discover some of the Ice Age titans of Talara, the asphaltic site in Northwest Peru

Uncovering L.A.'s Ice Age Past

Take a dip into the science of the tar pits in this video, a rare look under the surface at the fossilized bones of Ice Age predators, from dire wolves to mighty mammoths.

The lower jaw of a dire wolf from La Brea Tar PIts resting on a piece of paper with the words "Last known real dirw wolf in the world!!" Aenocyon dirus lower jaw 13,082 years old' written on it

Dire Wolves: Sorry, They’re Totally Still Extinct

NHM and Tar Pits experts weigh in on why dire wolves have not, in fact, been successfully cloned, and the surprising perils of de-extinction

Bloomberg Connects Header Image depicting the screen of a guide user

Digital Guide to La Brea Tar Pits

Our new audio tour lets everyone explore the La Brea Tar Pits' history and research, even while the museum is closed, with Bloomberg Connects' free digital guide.

Life reconstruction of fire at La Brea Tar Pits during the Pleistocene as bison are stuck during a wildfire

Why Did the Ice Age Titans Go Extinct?

A new study reveals that human impacts in an environment made fire-prone by climate change and herbivore loss led to large mammals vanishing from southern California.

Geek Out in an Ice Age Daydream

Tar AR brings Ice Age animals back to L.A.

Mammoths, meet the metaverse

Paleontologists from La Brea Tar Pits develop a whole herd of scientifically accurate extinct animals to use in AR and VR

Sabertooth cat skeleton and notecard with field notes

Get Sedimental With La Brea Tar Pits

Help transcribe 'dig' field notes for fossils excavated since 1969

Our Evolving Understanding of Dire Wolves

Dire? Yes. Wolves? Not so much.