The La Brea Tar Pits Have Been Sucking in Visitors for Millennia. Paleontologists Are Still Finding Out What Lies Within the Ooze

In Los Angeles, scientists are delighted to decode one of the richest fossil records on Earth

Photographs by Michael Christopher Brown

April/May 2026

A visitor gazes at a statue of a giant short-faced bear. At around 11 feet tall, the Ice Age animal was the largest carnivorous mammal ever to roam North America. Michael Christopher Brown

Unusually for a major tourist attraction, the phrase “death trap” features prominently in the signage and the lore at the La Brea Tar Pits , the celebrated fossil site in the heart of Los Angeles. “Death Trap for Meat-Eaters” says the sign at one site, though in truth it’s a death trap for plant-eaters, too.…