The New World vulture or condor family, Cathartidae, contains seven extant species in five genera. It includes five extant vultures and two extant condors found in warm and temperate areas of the Americas. The "New World" vultures were widespread in both the Old World and North America during the Neogene.
Tar pits, sometimes referred to as asphalt pits, are large asphalt deposits. They form in the presence of oil, which is created when decayed organic matter is subjected to pressure underground. If this crude oil seeps upward via fractures, conduits, or porous sedimentary rock layers, it may pool up at the surface. The lighter components of the crude oil evaporate into the atmosphere, leaving behind a black, sticky asphalt. Tar pits are often excavated because they contain large fossil collections.
The California condor is a New World vulture and the largest North American land bird. It became extinct in the wild in 1987 when all remaining wild individuals were captured, but has since been reintroduced to northern Arizona and southern Utah, the coastal mountains of California, and northern Baja California in Mexico. Although four other fossil members are known, it is the only surviving member of the genus Gymnogyps. The species is listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature as Critically Endangered.
The dire wolf is an extinct canine. It is one of the most famous prehistoric carnivores in North America, along with its extinct competitor Smilodon. The dire wolf lived in the Americas and eastern Asia during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene epochs. The species was named in 1858, four years after the first specimen had been found. Two subspecies are recognized: Aenocyon dirus guildayi and Aenocyon dirus dirus. The largest collection of its fossils has been obtained from the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles.
The black geese of the genus Branta are waterfowl belonging to the true geese and swans subfamily Anserinae. They occur in the northern coastal regions of the Palearctic and all over North America, migrating to more southernly coasts in winter, and as resident birds in the Hawaiian Islands. Alone in the Southern Hemisphere, a self-sustaining feral population derived from introduced Canada geese is also found in New Zealand.
Gymnogyps is a genus of New World vultures in the family Cathartidae. There are five known species in the genus, with only one being extant, the California condor.
Teratornithidae is an extinct family of very large birds of prey that lived in North and South America from the Late Oligocene to Late Pleistocene. They include some of the largest known flying birds.
Hancock Park is a city park in the Miracle Mile section of the Mid-Wilshire neighborhood in Los Angeles, California.
Chendytes lawi is an extinct, goose-sized flightless seaduck, once common on the California coast, the California Channel Islands, and possibly southern Oregon. It lived in the Pleistocene and survived into the Holocene. It appears to have gone extinct at about 450–250 BCE. The youngest direct radiocarbon date from a Chendytes bone fragment dates to 770–400 BCE and was found in an archeological site in Ventura County. Its remains have been found in fossil deposits and in early coastal archeological sites. Archeological data from coastal California show a record of human exploitation of Chendytes lawi for at least 8,000 years. It was probably driven to extinction by hunting, animal predation, and loss of habitat. Chendytes bones have been identified in archaeological assemblages from 14 coastal sites, including two on San Miguel Island and 12 in mainland localities. Hundreds of Chendytes bones and egg shells found in Pleistocene deposits on San Miguel Island have been interpreted as evidence that some of these island fossil localities were nesting colonies, one of which Guthrie dated to about 12,000 14C years. There is nothing in the North American archaeological record indicating a span of exploitation for any megafaunal genus remotely as long as that of Chendytes.
Teratornis was a genus of huge North American birds of prey – the best-known of the teratorns - of which, two species are known to have existed: Teratornis merriami and Teratornis woodburnensis. A large number of fossil and subfossil bones, representing more than 100 individuals, have been found in locations in California, Oregon, southern Nevada, Arizona, and Florida, though most are from the Californian La Brea Tar Pits. All remains except one Early Pleistocene partial skeleton from the Leisey Shell Pit near Charlotte Harbor, Florida date from the Late Pleistocene, with the youngest remains dating from the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary.
Burnet Cave is an important archaeological and paleontological site located in Eddy County, New Mexico, United States within the Guadalupe Mountains.
Conkling Cavern is a paleontological and archaeological site located in Doña Ana County, New Mexico. It was excavated in the late 1920s under the direction of Chester Stock. Unfortunately, Stock never published the fossil fauna from the excavations. Instead, R. P. Conkling, who had drawn scientific attention to the site, published very preliminary lists of mammals identified by Stock and birds identified by Howard. Several authors have done research on portions of the recovered fossil fauna. Excavated before modern dating techniques were developed, little is known about the chronology except some apparently is Holocene and much is Pleistocene in age.
Cathartornis is an ancient bird of the Teratornithidae family. It lived somewhere between 23 million years and 10,000 years ago. The only evidence of the bird's existence is a few bones. Its remains were documented in 1910. Cathartornis was described on the basis of 2 tarsometatarsi, 1 complete and 1 containing only the distal end, recovered from the Pleistocene La Brea Tar Pits in Southern California. Since then, no other fossils have officially been referred to the taxon, though some fossils assigned to Teratornis could be from Cathartornis and unpublished remains have been mentioned.
Buteogallus daggetti, occasionally called "Daggett's eagle" or the "walking eagle", is an extinct species of long-legged hawk which lived in southwest North America during the Pleistocene. Initially believed to be some sort of carrion-eating eagle, it was for some time placed in the distinct genus Wetmoregyps, named for Alexander Wetmore. It probably resembled a larger version of the modern-day savanna hawk, with its long legs possibly used like the secretarybird of Africa to hunt for small reptiles from a safe distance. It died out about 13,000 years ago.
The LaBrea owl is an extinct owl reported from the upper Pleistocene asphalt deposits of the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, California. It was first described in 1933 by Hildegarde Howard as Strix brea, but this extinct owl was recently placed into its own genus by Campbell and Bocheński (2010). The Brea owl has also been found in the upper Pleistocene asphalt deposits of Carpinteria, California. Oraristrix brea is interpreted as more terrestrial in habits than forest owls because, compared to North American species of Bubo and Strix, it had longer legs relative to its wingspan.
Gymnogyps varonai, sometimes called the Cuban condor, is an extinct species of large New World vulture in the family Cathartidae. G. varonai is related to the living California condor, G. californianus and the extinct G. kofordi, either one of which it may have evolved from. The species is solely known from fossils found in the late Pleistocene to early Holocene tar seep deposits in Cuba. G. varonai may have preyed upon carcasses from large mammals such as ground sloths.
A list of prehistoric and extinct species whose fossils have been found in the La Brea Tar Pits, located in present-day Hancock Park, a city park on the Miracle Mile section of the Mid-Wilshire district in Los Angeles, California.
Loye Holmes Miller, was an American paleontologist and zoologist who served as professor of zoology at the University of California, Los Angeles, University of California, Berkeley, and University of California, Davis.
Coragyps occidentalis, the Pleistocene black vulture, is an extinct species of New World vulture that lived throughout North America during the Pleistocene. It seems to have evolved into the modern black vulture by decreasing in size during the last ice age.
Chester Stock was an American paleontologist who was a specialist on the Pleistocene mammalian fauna of the Rancho La Brea tar pits. He served as a professor of geology at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
