Unearth Fossil Discoveries Online With the La Brea Tar Pits
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Excavation is never ending at the La Brea Tar Pits. Though the museum is closed, their work uncovering fossils dating back 11,000 to 55,000 years ago to the Ice Age continues. Photo courtesy of La Brea Tar Pits & Museum
Budding paleontologists can now learn virtually about the only active Ice Age urban fossil site in the world that is located at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles.
“It is a very dynamic place,” said Agnes Novie, coordinator, school programs for 10 years at the La Brea Tar Pits. “It is a pretty special place to be.”
Bats may conjure images of dark, dank caves, but they can actually be found all over Los Angeles freeway underpasses, industrial hubs and, it turns out, in our own back yards.
That is in part why the Natural History Museum of L.A. County is asking for the public s help as part of its Backyard Bat Survey, which is billed as the first large-scale study of how the flying mammals make use of urban and suburban habitats. It would be difficult, the museum notes, for researchers to gain access to so much private property on their own.
Researchers hope that better data on these understudied habitats will help inform land planning and conservation decisions, and maybe inspire residents to take more interest in and better care of their local environment.