Scientists at the tar pits discovered that many of the smaller animals they extracted from the pits still exist around Los Angeles today. But many of the larger mammals-such as woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers-are now extinct. Why do you think this is the case? What can scientists learn about Los Angeles' climate history by studying the specimens found in these tar pits?

Concerns about climate change and its impact on the world around us are growing daily. New scientific studies at the La Brea Tar Pits are probing the link between climate warming and the evolution of Ice Age predators, attempting to predict how animals will respond to climate change today.

The La Brea Tar Pits are famous for the amazing array of Ice Age fossils found there, such as ground sloths, mammoths, and predators like saber-toothed cats and powerful dire wolves. But the climate during the end of the Ice Age (50,000-11,000 years ago) was unstable, with rapid warming and cooling. New research reported here has documented the impact of this climate change on La Brea predators for the first time.

Two new studies published by research associates at of the Page Museum document significant change over time in the skulls of both dire wolves and saber-toothed cats. "Different tar pits at La Brea accumulated at different times," said F. Robin O'Keefe of Marshall University, lead author on the dire wolf study (Palaeontologia Electronica, April 9, 2014). "When we compare fossils deposited at different times, we see big changes. We can actually watch evolution happening."

After the end of the last Ice Age, La Brea dire wolves became smaller and more graceful, adapting to take smaller prey as glaciers receded and climate warmed. This rapidly changing climate drove change in saber-toothed cats as well. "Saber-toothed cats show a clear correlation between climate and shape. Cats living after the end of the Ice Age are larger, and adapted to taking larger prey," said Julie Meachen of Des Moines University, lead author on the sabertooth study

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explanation:

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