Los Angeles, California, is one of the world's most glamorous places. Movie stars and fashion models, musicians and superstar athletes can usually be found under the bright lights of the bustling, sprawling city. But right in the middle of this glitz and glamour is a relic left over from a prehistoric world when strange creatures still roamed the Earth.
The pits at La Brea bubble with tar-in a busy urban park! For tens of thousands of years, the La Brea Tar Pits trapped animals big and small, becoming a graveyard for creatures of a lost age. Over time, the tar pits have become a treasure trove of bones. Today, the vast collection at La Brea helps scientists unravel the mysteries of an ancient world.
The Age of Giant Beasts
Most of the fossils recovered from the La Brea Tar Pits date back to the Pleistocene Epoch, a period that began about 2.6 million years ago and ended around 11,700 years ago. During the Pleistocene, the world was a much different place. Ice ages came and went. Glaciers helped carve out many of the mountains and plains, rivers and lakes that we see today.
By the time the Pleistocene began, dinosaurs had been extinct for more than 60 million years. Mammals now ruled the planet-very, very big mammals! The Pleistocene was dominated by megafauna, a word that literally means "large animals." Megafauna such as mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths, and short-faced bears roamed the lands that would one day be called North America.
The megafauna reigned for a fairly short period, however. Earth's climate changed rapidly near the end of the Pleistocene. The last great Ice Age came to a close, glaciers receded, and the planet grew warmer. A mass extinction soon followed, wiping out many of the large mammals that characterized the Pleistocene. Nearly all the megafauna species vanished.
Denne historien er fra April 2022-utgaven av Muse Science Magazine for Kids.
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Denne historien er fra April 2022-utgaven av Muse Science Magazine for Kids.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Who's Your Cousin?
The great apes are among the most popular animals in most zoos. Their actions, facial expressions, and family life remind us so much of ourselves. Have you ever wondered, though, how we might look to them?
Is it possible to die of boredom?
To figure out if we can die of boredom, we first have to understand what boredom is. For help, we called James Danckert, a psychologist who studies boredom at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
THE PROBLEM WITH PALM OIL
Palm oil is all around you. It’s in sugary snacks like cookies and candy bars. It’s in lipstick and shampoo and pet food.
SERGE WICH
Serge Wich’s favorite days at work are spent out in the forest, studying orangutans in Sumatra and Borneo or chimpanzees in Tanzania.
ELODIE FREYMANN
When you’re feeling sick, it probably doesn’t occur to you to try eating tree bark.
Guardians of the Forest
EARLY, MAKESHIFT WILDLIFE DRONES HELPED TO DETECT AND PROTECT ORANGUTANS.
APE ANTICS
The Whirling World of primate play
Dr. Ape Will See You Now
HUMANS AREN’T THE ONLY PRIMATES THAT USE MEDICATION.
THE LEFT OVERS
A lot has happened for modern humans to get to this point. We lost most of our hair, learned how to make tools, established civilizations, sent a person to the Moon, and invented artificial intelligence. Whew! With all of these changes, our bodies have changed, too. It’s only taken us about six million years.
SO, WHAT IS A PRIMATE?
What do you have in common with the aye-aye, sifaka, siamang, and potto? If you said your collarbone, you re probably a primatologist—a person who studies primates. If you’re not, read on.
