Stories

How Smilodon became saber-toothed tigers—and why they're really saber-toothed cats

Groundbreaking new research from La Brea Tar Pits curators finds that in California, 13,000 years ago, huge Ice Age mammals that had roamed the landscape for many millennia, suddenly ceased to exist. The cause? Humans, catastrophic fires, and an ecosystem made vulnerable by climate change.

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.

In California, 13,000 years ago, huge Ice Age mammals that had roamed the landscape for many millennia, suddenly ceased to exist. The cause? Humans, catastrophic fires, and an ecosystem made vulnerable by climate change.

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

La Brea Tar Pits presents everything you need to know about saber-toothed cats.

How introduced donkeys and the indigenous pumas that love (to hunt) them are helping to resurrect extinct food webs in Death Valley

An exhilaratingly lifelike recreation of a saber-toothed cat will thrill — and teach — audiences in Ice Age Encounters.

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

What blows this celebrated artist's mind? Microscopic ice age plants and rat poop