"Caught in an asphalt lake"

As much as I love visiting the American Museum of Natural History in its current incarnation I sometimes wish I could have seen the institution in earlier eras. It has undergone its own evolution and while plenty of classic and remarkable specimens remain on display there are many that have been removed, put in storage, or lost.

One such exhibit was the "asphalt lake" habitat group meant to portray the famous La Brea tar pits. I have no idea what became of it, but when on display it showed a Smilodon and a dire wolf (Canis dirus) stalking around a reeking pool filled with tar and a rotting giant sloth carcass.

The exhibit was initially set up in 1913 after some of the AMNH staff (like W.D. Matthew) visited the La Brea sites for the specific purpose of creating the exhibit. It was not the purpose of the AMNH team to restore the animals precisely as they would have looked in life, however. Matthew's description of the skeletons made it clear that he wished to fire up the imaginations of visitors when they looked at the scene;

No attempt is made to cover the skeletons with flesh and hide - this the visitor may imagine for himself; and if he pleases the scanty vegetation of a dry country around the margins of the asphalt spring.

Two ground sloths (Mylodon), great heavy, thick-haired, clumsy, clawed beasts distantly related to the living tree sloths, but as big as a grizzly bear, have been caught in the asphalt. In spite of their struggles indicated in the disturbed and broken surface of the pool, they have sunk down until only the head and fore limb of one, and the head of the other, appear above the black asphalt.

A sabre-tooth tiger (Smilodon) one of the most powerful and dangerous of the extinct beasts of prey has been attracted by the struggles of the hapless ground sloths, and hastened to the spot to kill and devour them. But in his eagerness, he too has been trapped and is now vainly trying to extricate his feet, already beginning to sink below the surface.

Meanwhile, a fourth animal, the great extinct wolf (Canis dirus) has come up. More wary, or as yet more fortunate, he has come over the solid hardened asphalt, and avoided the treacherous surface of the pool. He sees his ancient and dreaded enemy the sabre-tooth and the powerful and bulky ground sloths in difficulties where neither teeth nor claws will avail against his attack. He dare not yet spring in to attack them but leaps about on the margin of the pool in high excitement, barking out his real opinions in regard to sabre-tooth tigers, which under ordinary circumstances he would reserve to a safer margin of distance. The Smilodon, distracted for a moment from his desperate attempts to free his feet from the entangling mass, answers with a savage snarl, which we may interpret as a wish, soon to be fulfilled, that the wolf would bear him company in his troubles.

Such is the little drama that our group sets forth. A realistic story it is -- a characteristic incident which must have happened, pretty much as we have told it, again and again during the time -- many thousands of years ago -- when these tar-springs were active.

[This same sort of scenario was delivered in a different fashion by the comedian Charlie Callas in the children's documentary "Prehistoric World", which is unfortunately no longer available to share on the web.]