Talk:La Brea Tar Pits

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[edit] Human remains asserted

"One human has been found in the La Brea Tar Pits, a woman." Is there any support for this statement, which is closely paralleled by the opening of Howard V. Hendrix' Better Angels 1999 [1]. The anon. editor User:68.6.58.171 has not previously contributed to Wikipedia. I am moving the statement here for vetting, for the time being. Can we get some details?--Wetman 05:22, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I know for sure there's one on display in the Page Museum; I recall there was some sort of controversy about her origins (exact dates, etc) but she is there. -- justfred 08:56, 7 Sep 2005
Good enough. Work that into the reference when you return it to the article then. --Wetman

There's the la brea in fiction section, why is this named thusly? and would it be appropriate to reference the scene in 'my girl 2' where Nick taunts Vada -- saying that hes dropped her mood ring into the pits. As she attempts to sale a fence to get into the pits, he admits he still has it.

Feel free to mention it. Fewer details are probably necessary.

Every Trinidadian Knows and Tobagonian Knows that the La Brea is the Home of the La Brea Pitch Lake. Not the tar pits

I'm sure you must have noticed the first line of the article, "The La Brea Tar Pits (or Rancho La Brea Tar Pits) are a famous cluster of tar pits located in the Miracle Mile district of Los Angeles, California;" There appears to be a "La Brea Pitch Lake" in Trinidad, and you're welcome to write an article about that if you'd like, but this article is about the one in Los Angeles. Considering that "La Brea" is Spanish for "the tar", it's possible there are other "la brea" sites around the world. justfred 09:54, 8 Feb 2006

[edit] Mammoth Problem

Is it the Columbian Mammoth, or the Imperial Mammoth that's found in La Brea? My sources say that it's the Imperial Mammoth.--Mr Fink 04:24, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

http://www.tarpits.org/research/mamtooth.html says its a Columbian mammoth. Coradon 09:21, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Something Useful

Someone who's good at this should add this link: http://www.livescience.com/environment/070510_tar_bacteria.html --Crid 21:11, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Fiction" vs "Culture"

There's this section "La Brea in fiction"; because it is worded that way, it's inappropriate for a mention of the La Brea Tar Pits as the cover illustration for the seminal book on software engineering "The Mythical Man-Month". If no one objects, I'll change the name to "La Brea in literature" or "La Brea in culture" or some such, and add the reference to TMM-M. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.95.226.224 (talk) 22:06, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] On predator/prey ratio

"La Brea may be the only excavation site in the world where the predators found outnumber prey." It this in number of individuals or number of specimens? In either case, the Cleveland Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry probably also fits; I don't know about non-dinosaurs, but there are at least 46 Allosaurus individuals and another 7 individuals of other carnivorous genera there, out of at least 73 total dinosaurs (so 53 of 73 are carnivores). J. Spencer (talk) 18:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] †?

Multiple species of animal are listed with a "†" symbol, but there is no disclaimer stating what the "†" refers to. This really needs to be repaired. --Schmendrick (talk) 18:31, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

That was posted by an IP address on March 14. My guess is that it means "extinct", except the user forgot to indicate that. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 18:53, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
I assumed the same thing, excpet the llama is linked with a †, as well as a couple of other living species. So either this user made a whoopsie with those particular links, or the crosses mean something else. I'm willing to check all the links and make the † into extinct animals, if nobody objects. I'll be sure to place a legend should I edit. Besseme (talk) 18:01, 30 May 2008 (UTC)