By WolfmanSF (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons
Last week on Fossil Friday, I gave you a stinky specimen to identify.
Why stinky?
Well this one was quickly identified by our online friends as coming from the La Brea tar pits. And though it was pulled from the pits years ago, the scent of tar still persists.
So what animal was it? Horse? Sloth?
No, says Mackinz ! It's a camelop. From the National Park Service's website:
"Camels originated in North American about 50 million years ago and their presence in the Old World is a recent event, geologically speaking. Most of their history is preserved in the fossil record in North America. Based on this record we know that most camels didn't live in deserts but were adapted to grasslands and parkland situations. "
Thanks for playing this week. Stay tuned this Friday when I bring you another wild organism from the past.
