OCR Text |
Show H 1; I Ijt enormous lrJCc him such Kjible foe of Kj bea and Silly proved b rum asa BfllMPFTE skeleton of a sabre-I sabre-I tx'.W tiger, the bloodthirsty fitter that roamed the earth ffmes, has been recovered Hltfphsit fossil pits of California nir. a raucjni in Los Angeles. jg-Trere ported out from thnu-Hrfbo.ie5 thnu-Hrfbo.ie5 found in the same- pit?. Jprcliifloric camels, the imperial iKiffwen feet high; woolly mnm-auiodons mnm-auiodons and prehistoric varie-tt, varie-tt, tears, wolves, coyotes, cats bison and other animals ctly put together by the scien-Ltbe scien-Ltbe pieces of a picture puzzle. mct this skeleton confirms many fef theories science has long held if this prehistoric tiger. One of nries is that the tiger dug his lp Tilh his tectli that the same apvu which made him such a fci'fi? finally proved his ruin-jB&r-toothed tiger had two long Hk sibres. which curved dowr.- ifcehrerd from the lower jaw. Ell itself, it is judged from the ttiisely resembled the presenting present-ing lut it wa. ab iut the size of In tippr. It waj abie to stab I Nld kill many of its gigantic tones, but the overeflFlcieney Bins led. the scientists i I IfUcwn extinction. I Pry ii that the great stabbing tir; iere i . m such fear by A tvhtb prcu !unc:"r wifh use. I poition of tiger improved upon 1 Rttiirs by a more active n -I Milhthe result that the teeth M bt iocger and longer. I Rae saf? from thee teeth I W tht the huge elephant was I P 'Seated whenever ho heard 1 P rr rf the tiger, bo Mei teas and death-telling. A fewve. , -,...!, , . .' . would A those bng --A,r. of &9B ?tfclt could uprool trees. W Jjj l!VJ T 1 hiTl ' r J' ' ' w tii? news w fis spread I Wti was en the scent 1 tfer's power was short-; short-; P tetth which had been Jus Ion and which were dev 07T1 troA - 1 l- J later stages of his de-j"? de-j"? became so long that they ritJ his eating. While he lUck with them, he could the meat of the animal S.rr''1 nor c-uld he chew the WtV- r.,outh. " j1' n unfortunate situa-j situa-j 6ttt daggering tiger. He 1 the driPPre red flesh Pierced by his immense Ki? tben turn ewav with u ' ,tav1nK the mat to bo BLi0:Be other animai- sme- S ,t0ke ,mn'l bites of the he bad lanced to death. mi wT un6atiaf'inB to tht iVi !ia(1 been accustomed Kliitt bC3?t r-t a time- The ,f ' v 'C' tVa" ab'e to tear from Itu . 6nimal he htui klller1 Zei' t0 an alrady KSth,etiger Cou not aat-tthlir aat-tthlir ,,ibbl:nK. he took J!.bl0od :ms. In- ?n?,e a-:inUj' for b" ! 1 ",J I ' 'C t V'ultJ be enUKh to 1 LA ' ;! tho beginning had ? f2wE:''' "v" Immense of size but with the grace-rul grace-rul lankncss of the tigers of to-day, Sabre-tooth somewhat resembled them, though beside him the largest inmate of the Indian jungle would appear puny. The creature was beautiful, in his way, as is the peacock pea-cock or the banded rattlesnake. There were color contrasts and fine blendings. The stripes upon him were wonderfully rich, and as he came creeping toward the body he was as splendid as he was dreadful." dread-ful." From "The Story of Ab," by Stanley Waterloo r-i 1 1 -u. ftU fthftwn on a renroduction of the Call- I Z5Keieion 01 iwu miuh.-iv... o fornia asphalt pits in which is now Southern California and which were becoming scarcer and scarcer through being sacrificed to the tiger'-i tremendous blood-sucking propensities. The soil was not producing enough food for these victims. This factor, together with the destructive influence of the tiger, was enough to make them extinct. When thev vanished the sabre-tooth and the other gigantic predatory beasts could find no victims, and they died, too. Tho bones of the sabrc-tooth, which now stand in the Los Angeles County Museum of Science and Art. belonged be-longed to the Pleistocene, or Glacial epoch, which immediately preceded historical his-torical times. The asphalt pits where they were found are tho richest, in the world and the best provided with fos-Sila fos-Sila because they served as perfect traps for the big mammals. They caught the mammoths and camels and sabre-tooths a j flypaper catches flies. Once boiling lakes of asphalt, these cooled and covered with dust A sabre-tooth sabre-tooth or elephant or giant bear WOOW be involved before he was aware. Efforts Ef-forts to fre? himself stuck him harder to the tar. His struggles or his death brought other animals to feed on him. and they in turn were glued to the asphalt. Eventually all died and sank under the surface, so that the trap wa reset Evidently Evi-dently blM of hof gas, breaking through from beneath, frequently caused the pits to boil again and prevented solidification, so that hundreds of generations gen-erations were captured and embalmed m How the Very Teeth That Made This Prehistoric 1 :vf Creature So Dreadful ' Grew So Long That He Couldn't Man-W Man-W age Solid Food Wi fe--' " ' and Finally Made V Ilif Him Unable to u jf 1 Enough of Any- I i :'" !,j thing to Keep Alive ' 'r y ' - .... '-3 :h show many of the ferocious charact aoth tigers of thousands of years aga well have resulted from decreasing numbers num-bers or complete disappearance of thoo types of larfre mammals that had constituted consti-tuted its prty, for BO highly specialized was the species that it could not adapt itself to su?li a profound change. "The sabre-tooth was, next to the great wolf, the most abundant mammal whose boned were left in tho asphalt. Hardly a pit was opened that did not yield the remains of this animal, which rr.aj' be taken to indicate cither that they existed in great numbers, that they were li -s intelligent than some other types and so failed to recognize the menace of the oily pools, or that hunger overcame their natural caution. While no accurate accu-rate census is possible, bones of the sjp 3m ; nosaurus, ono nPn V " old "Lbre 1 I K .lfx'. f Wp 4Sfc J-jBrffir'. ,.;e- fx,- I'rSrA' f Kf!.'' '' -, J. ) The sabrc-tooth tiger as ho is believed to have looked in the days of his power before he had dug hi3 gTave with his teeth sabre-tooth recovered from tho asphalt beds by the various institutions that have worked there are believed be-lieved to represent no less than 2,000 individuals. "Evidence obtained through excavating operations opera-tions justified but one statement regarding the Pleistocene climate of this region, namely, that it was more moist than at present, pres-ent, a condition necessary for the existence of such n varied fauna of k herbivorous animals. Cones found in the ga nsphaltum reprei specie of I tee H occurring now B&HA only much further 1 "I) Vi. their bones were found A f ' .vAH'tfl ale animals asphalt, an excellent preservative. I ' !""'r a" the le;.han f , which was, in fact, used by the Kgyji- 3 l:on and camel tians for embalming. The trappmj.- 4 with ; i ')"'-'" 1 eon- powers of these asphalt pits are still ditions because active. Rabbits and '' ' 'l"- i present-day repre- other small mam- V ' " sentatives of these mals are frequent- '' , ' foi eis are mostly ly caught in them - of tropiail distri- to-day. The Babr. - I bution, but repre- tooth iJ de- , , sentatives of the scribed as fol- J' I cat family, for in- rov.s by I K V ' :' stance, range to- Wynian, who '! ' day in America took part in V 'U- from tropical deserts the excavations jj to Arctic ice, the under Frank Asiatic tiger from the S. n.agcc-t, nl- t J semi-tropical lowlands . of India to the snows of rector oi tne ... , . Modern wolves whi Los An,?ele5 the isJbre-b Museum : "These sabres which pive the animal its name and prominence are simply the highly developed upper canine teeth, flattened and serrulated on front and back odfres. The whole structure of the ar imal Is adapted to prey upon the largo herbivores of that time. The limb bones how tremendous muscular power that would enable the animal to spring upon the back of even the bulkiest of the great quadrupeds. Its sharp sabres ild eaeily touch tho deeply hidden blood vessels of its victims, but, as they must have interfered seriously with eating eat-ing the flesh, it is assumed that the sabre-tobth was more a blood drinker than a flesh cater. "Extinction of the sabre-tooth may pristics of (he high Himalayas and , Siberia. Therefore the so- called tropical animal from the Rancho la Rrea might have flourished under conditions other than tropical. "As to the age of the La Brea fossils, fos-sils, any approximation in number of . in would be purely hypothetical. Authorities Au-thorities agree that tho Pleistocene or (ilacial epoch terminated less than 2.'i,-000 2.'i,-000 years ago. Tho duration of tho period pe-riod has been estimated at 200,000 to 500,000 years. Tho bones were accumulated accumu-lated somo timo during that period, but the relation of the Rancho la Brea fauna to other Pleistoceno assemblages is not yet fully determined. "It is often asked, Why did theso great beasts become extinct? Unquestionably overspcclalization was an important If not a prime factor in the wholesale extinction ex-tinction of the closing days of the Ag of fefammals. Among individuals of every speciei there is a variability that is apparently repressed or amplified, as conditions under which the species exists are constant or variable. In other words, the plasticity of a species or the power to adapt itself to changing conditions depends entirely upon climatic stability. "Presumably geological changes along the coastal rlope of Southern California during many thousands of years of the Pleistocene epoch were not of a character charac-ter to cause marked alterations of climate. cli-mate. Hence, while mammalian species living under extremely favorable conditions condi-tions were ever developing in size they were losing their plasticity and were unable to adapt themselves to new conditions con-ditions ushered in during that epoch." Stanley Waterloo, in his "Story of Ab," gives a description of a scene in early prehistoric days, which phows in what dread the ferocious sabre-tooth was held. "The tiger had come again! Once more with his stunning roar he had swept through tho villpge and had taken another an-other victim, a woman, the wife of one of the head men. Too benumbed by fear 1 this time to act at once, tho Shell Men had not pursued the great brute into the darkness. They had but ventured out a. : i i il.- a. ii iu ene morning ami xouuweu me irau and found that tho tiger had carried the woman in very nearly the same di-rection di-rection as he had borne the man and that what remained from his gorging of the night lay where his earlier feast had been. It waa tho first tragedy almost al-most repeated" The Shell Men dragged what remained of tho woman's body across a pathway, preparatory to capturing the tiger, who would return. "Into the open, along the path, came the tiger. His great head moved slowly slow-ly from side to side; the baleful eyes blazed up and down the pathway and the tawny muzzle was lifted to catch what burden there might be on the air. The beast seemed satisfied, emerging fairly into the eunlight, "Immense of size, but with the graceful grace-ful lanknc? of the tigers of to-day, saber-tooth somowhat resembled theni, though beside him tho largest inmate of tho Indian jungle would appear puny. The creature was beautiful, in his way, as is the peacock or tho banded rattlesnake. rattle-snake. There wero color contrasts and line blendings. The stripes upon him wero wonderfully rich, and aa he came creeping toward tho body he was as splondid as he was dreadful." With every nerve strained the Shell M n watched the devourcr begin his ghastly meal. Thon, while ho is unsuspectingly unsus-pectingly gorging himself, they let fall an enormous weighted Bpoar that they have suspended in an ovorhanging tree and pierce tho brute with a death wound. Thus they made way with nabre-tooth, the terror of man and beasts. |