Los Angeles may have a reputation as a concrete jungle, but in reality, it’s incredibly biodiverse, teeming with an amazing array of animals and plants. You just need to know where to find them. Wild LA—from the experts at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County—is the guidebook you’ve been waiting for. Equal parts natural history book, field guide, and trip planner, Wild LA has something for everyone. You’ll learn about the factors shaping LA nature—including flood, fire, and climate change—and find profiles of over one hundred local species, from sea turtles to rare plants to Hollywood's famous mountain lion, P-22. Also included are day trips that detail which natural wonders you can experience on hiking trails, in public parks, and in your own backyard.

Describes the origin of the La Brea tar pits, discusses the prehistoric life that has been found in them, and tells how scientists have explored them and studied what they have found there.

Ever since the first popular article on the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits was published in Sunset magazine in 1908, this amazing Ice Age fossil site has captivated the imaginations of countless people from all over the world. This "death trap of the ages" and its population of saber-toothed cats, dire wolves, and other extinct animals, now displayed in the stunning George C. Page Museum, continues to be one of the most popular tourist attractions in Los Angeles. George Allan Hancock donated the 26-acre site to the County of Los Angeles in 1924 to preserve this scientific treasure trove for research and the enjoyment of future generations.

MONSTERS OF OLD LOS ANGELES The Prehistoric Animals of the La Brat Tar Pits BY CHARLES ML MARTIN Illustrated by Herb Raybum THE VIKING PRESS NEW YORK 1950 To JOHN HERMAN, D. Sc. Whose abundant knowledge and untiring assist ance made this book possible. Charles M. Martin Second printing September 1951 Third printing July 1955 Fourth printing September 1958 Fifth printing October 1961 Copyright 1950 by Charles M. Martin First published by The Viking Press in August 1950 Published on the same day in the Dominion of Canada by The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS Acknowledgments 7 Foreword 9 1. The Sage of the Ages 13 2. Eat to Live 20 3. Primordial Supremacy 29 4. The Stampede 38 5. A New Home 45 6. Life at La Brea 52 7. Ricky Arrives 58 8. Ricky and Racky 67 9. The Rains Come 74 10. The Miracle of Life 81 11. The Greatest Tragedy 88 12. Six-Ton Mother Love 95 13. Thanksgiving Day at La Brea 103 14. The Land of Plenty 110 15. Go West, Young Man 117 Addenda The La Brea Excavations 125 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to make grateful acknowledgment to those scientists who helped me so unselfishly while I was doing the research and writing of this book. To Dr. John Herman, whose encouragement and untiring energy helped so much in gathering the factual material while I was doing the field work, and also at the Los Angeles County Museum. Dr. Herman worked closely with me on the correlating of the prehistoric animals with the forms of similar species which exist today in various parts of the world. He was a bulwark on which to lean for all geographical locations as well, which is far afield from his usual pursuits, in his long and illustrious career as achemist. To Dr. Chester Stock, Senior Curator of Science at the Los Angeles County Museum, who directed much of the more recent exploratory excavation work at La Urea. Dr. Stocks book, Rancho la Brea Science Series No. 11, Paleontology No. 7, furnished much of the factual material To Dr. Hiklcgarde Howard, Curator of Avian Paleontology, for her assistance in ascertaining information regarding the birds and plants of ancient La Brea, Some of the leaves and small seeds were found in the skulls of mice which had been preserved in the tar pits for forty thou sand years, and from such minute evidence Dr. Howard identified many of the farms of plant life of the Pleistocene period. 8 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To Dr. John A. Comstock, now retired, but who for years was Senior Curator at the Los Angeles County Museum, for his splendid cooperation and many helpful suggestions. To Doctors Merriam, Miller, and Kerr, who have been credited for their discoveries by Dr. Stock in his Science Series. Also my grateful thanks to the directors of the Los Angeles County Museum, and particularly to Dr. James H. Breasted, Jr. The oppor tunity to study the restorations at the Museum was an in valuables aid, My heartiest thanks to Captain George Allan Hancock, who do nated the acreage containing the La Brea Pits to the Comity of Los Angeles in perpetuity for the public, for his many philanthropic services in making the restorations possible. Captain Hancock donated La Brea to the County in 1913, in memory of his late father, Major Henry Hancock. The explorations in Hancock Park were started by Dr. Merriam and his associates of the University of California in 1913. All the pits are plainly marked to give the student ofthe prehistoric animals of La Brea much priceless information. To Herb Rayburn, talented young artist, who accompanied me on my research work to the fields and museums, and who much 1 many sketches of the material in Hancock Park and in the Hancock room in the County Museum. His gifted talent helped clothe many of the skeletal remains with the flesh of reality for this hook. To these, and to the staff members of the Los Angeles County Museum who gave so graciously of their time and knowledge, 1 wish to express my most sincere appreciation. CHAiUJKS M...

Ever wonder about life in the Ice Age? Little Miss HISTORY travels back in time to LA BREA TAR PITS & MUSEUM in her eighth adventure of the award winning "Little Miss HISTORY Travels to" children's book series. Springs of liquid petroleum and a great lake of pitch, filled with exploding bubbles, once dotted the landscape of modern Los Angeles. At La Brea scientists discovered fossils of plants and animals like mammoths, sloths, and saber-tooth tigers that lived there thousands of years ago. The George C. Page Museum contains a glass-enclosed laboratory nicknamed the "Fish Bowl" where visitors can see scientists at work cleaning and categorizing current fossil discoveries. Visitors will discover wonders as they meander through the Pleistocene gardens, view an Ice Age film, and gaze down into the pits - but Be careful! Watch out for those tar seeps.

When Daniel Blackland was six, he ingested his first bone fragment, a bit of kraken spine plucked out of the sand during a visit with his demanding, brilliant, and powerful magician father, Sebastian. When Daniel was twelve, he watched Sebastian die at the hands of the Hierarch of Southern California, devoured for the heightened magic layered deep within his bones. Now, years later, Daniel is a petty thief with a forged identity. Hiding amid the crowds in Los Angeles—the capital of the Kingdom of Southern California—Daniel is trying to go straight. But his crime-boss uncle has a heist he wants Daniel to perform: break into the Hierarch's storehouse of magical artifacts and retrieve Sebastian's sword, an object of untold power. For this dangerous mission, Daniel will need a team he can rely on, so he brings in his closest friends from his years in the criminal world. There's Moth, who can take a bullet and heal in mere minutes. Jo Alverado, illusionist. The multitalented Cassandra, Daniel's ex. And, new to them all, the enigmatic, knowledgeable Emma, with her British accent and her own grudge against the powers-that-be. The stakes are high, and the stage is set for a showdown that might just break the magic that protects a long-corrupt regime. Extravagant and yet moving, Greg van Eekhout's California Bones is an epic adventure set in a city of canals and secrets and casual brutality--different from the world we know, yet familiar and true. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

*Includes pictures *Includes a bibliography for further reading Even at a distance, the acrid stench of asphalt and sulfur singes the hairs of people's nostrils, and when the blustering winds subside, the potent miasma lingers in the air. To the untrained eye, the La Brea Tar Pits seem to be nothing more than simply pools of thick, viscous black sludge, its obsidian-like surface bestrewn with an assortment of autumn leaves and dirt. Gooey methane bubbles spurt up periodically, shattering the glassy veneer of the grease-black lakes, and the shiny bubbles swell to varying sizes and wiggle from side to side before popping, the sticky collapse almost reminiscent of cracking open a chocolate molten lava cake. This black sludge might seem rather unremarkable after a few moments, as it appears to just sit there in its idle state, but in fact, the seemingly innocuous bubbles are symptomatic of the treacly dark substance lurking on the bottom of the pit. The pit's contents have spelled the doom for a countless number of creatures both large and small, from legions of insects to mighty mastodons, mammoths, and snarling saber-toothed cats from the Pleistocene Era. Of course, this is what makes the area a natural landmark in the first place, and today the La Brea Tar Pits are considered by many scientists to be among the greatest finds in modern history. Technically, these lustrous lakes of ink-black, while branded "tar," are in actuality pools of asphalt seeps that have remained in place for several millennia, gushing forth from a natural subterranean petroleum spring underneath the city of Los Angeles known as the "Salt Lake Oil Field." Needless to say, the tar pits are a far cry from the glittering, crystalline ponds cooled by the shade of surrounding palm trees found throughout the City of Angels. Indeed, the pungent reek of asphalt, pulsing methane bubbles, and their hauntingly black surfaces, making it impossible to gauge the true depth of the asphalt abysses, should have seemingly served as clear deterrents to the animals that roamed the vicinity prior to their entrapment. Instead, judging by the treasure trove of bones and remnants that have been uncovered within the pits, the sludge seemed to have figuratively emitted a siren song that no animal, regardless of stature or physical power, could resist. The disturbing and fascinating implications of the silent death traps, situated in what is now 5801 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, only further heightens their mystery. Evidence shows that the slow, torturous deaths of many of the creatures who became permanently ensnared in the asphalt quicksand were worsened by passing predators who essentially stumbled upon supper served on a sticky platter. Unfortunate, or rather, clumsy predators sometimes slipped, struggled, and were ultimately swallowed up by the tar pit themselves, creating a macabre, yet natural cycle of death and despair. Unsurprisingly, the La Brea Tar Pits have also become a wellspring of supernatural legends. According to one such legend, the disembodied, bone-chilling shrieks of a desperate woman, supposedly the La Brea Woman, victim of Los Angeles' oldest cold murder case, can still be heard in the dead of the night. More curious yet, these liquid time capsules are swaddled in another layer of mystique, its fossils not only solving mysterious riddles of a bygone age, but also offering up even more questions that are begging to be answered. The La Brea Tar Pits: The History and Legacy of One of the World's Most Famous Fossil Sites looks at the geological origins of the area and analyzes the fossil finds from the tar. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about the tar pits like never before.