.
Another
difference is in the structure of the legs, as those of the dire wolf are
shorter in relation to the body. The dire wolf evolved during the
Pleistocene, and became extinct by about 16,000 years ago. One of
the best places to learn about the dire wolf is at the George C. Page Museum
of La Brea Discoveries, in Los Angeles, CA. It was built for the
purpose of housing and displaying the fossils of the famous Rancho La Brea
tar pits. The remains of some 2,000 dire wolves have been excavated
from the deposit's zones of ancient, hardened asphalt. Because so
many individuals have been found here, the dire wolf is one of the most
thoroughly studied of all fossil canids. The tar pits, which came
into existence some 40,000 years ago, acted as a natural trap for many
kinds of animals, from enormous mammoths to tiny insects. Crude oil
emerging from deep within the Earth's crust gradually thickened at the
surface via a series of asphalt flows. Because water does not mix
well with tar, rain often accumulated on the surface of these flows, giving
them the appearance of being ordinary water holes. |
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