This week we finish our unit on fossil evidence for the Geologic Time Scale by taking a closer look at one of the most famous sites for fossils and remains in North America: the La Brea Tar Pits. To this end, we will be watching the Science Channel special titled "Death Cat Canyon."
What things have we learned from the remains at La Brea?
Also, do not forget that the final day for your Science News presentation is this Wednesday. The Science news worksheet can be found in the Resources section of the wiki.
27 comments:
If uniformitarianism is correct, then there should be many more prey then there are predators. That is how it is today.
Then why have so many more predator than prey remains been found at the La Brea Tar Pits?
The five things that fossils tell you are, What they ate by looking at their teeth, How old there where, What kind of animals live back then, What they looked like by the bone structure,and how they died.
They can show the change in the climate,the age of the animals, The size of the animals, What the animals ate and what the land may have looked like.
Why is the tar bubbling? Is it hot?
Why did these animals go extinct? We still have Brown abd Black Bears, but no Short-Faced Bears. We still have Mountain Lions, but no American Cave Lions.
Why?
Some things a fossil can tell is; what type of animal it is, predator, prey, bird, mammal, fish, reptile anphibian, the characteristics of an animal, size, shape, weight, color, length, height, what the animal ate, by looking at the teeth, and/or looking what is in the teeth, the number of animals during that time, if the animal flourished or if it was underfed and malnourished, how it died, when it died, what other animals lived during that time, if it ever was injured, maybe by fight or something else, which can give us insight into if it was a violent animal, and how intelligent the animal was. Those are some things we can tell from an animal fossil. A plant fossil can give us insight into; the amount of vegetation, any droughts or infestation, the climate, wet seasons and dry seasons and climates for the both, and what the landscape was like in the area.
And the theory to why so many predator are found compared to prey(10-1) is that a prey animal would become stuck and many predators would come to eat it trapping them all, or that a wolf, the dire or grey whcih bothe existed during that time, traveled in a pack so several predators would go in with only one prey.
from Jetzer on the wiki:
1. 25millon years ago
2. 1-2 in can trap a mamoth
3.last 40,000 years it has captured animals
4. 300 bison were found in there
5. 18 lions American lions were bigger then saber tooths
6. Bison had a a realy stong kick that could fracter a scall
7. show what animals were back then
8. started with an acidental death, but then endeds with lots of other deaths
Mr. Hoopman,
Hi, I was having problems creating a blog or posting one. So, I hope this counts!
1. age-(radioactive dating)
2. what they ate-(teeth)
3. environment-(animals, what they ate, plants, gases)
4. predator/ prey & carnivore/herbivore-(teeth, size, bone structure, what they ate)
5. serious injuries-(intent in the bone, mis-shaped bone)
All of these can be found out when you study fossils.
Thanks!
Maggie Chandler
Five things that you can find out about fossils are..
1. How old they are(relative age can be found by looking at the layers of the rock, and absolute can be found by radioactive dating)
2. What they have eaten (looking at there teeth)
3. Characteristics of the animal(size, type, shape)
4.You can find out what the environment was like (for example looking at the pollen pellets around the area where the fossil was found)
5. Carnivore/herbivore (size/structure of teeth)
6. how it died(marks or damage to bones)
what things that fossils can tell us:
1. how it died (marks or damage to bones)
2. Age (relative age can be found by looking at the layer of rock that the fossil was found in, and absolute age can be found by radioactive-dating)
3. what it ate (there teeth
4. what the environment was like (for example in the movie they looked at the pollen pellets that were around the environment)
5. the characteristics of it (the type of animal or plant, size of animal, shape)
6. carnivore or herbivore (teeth shape and structure)
5 things that the fossils tell you from the tar is that they were well preserved, the things they ate by looking at their teeth, what the climate was like, there were more predators than prey, and how or when it died.
Mr. Hoopman there are more predators because one prey dies and a bunch or predators to eat and they get stuck and die
How the animals lived and died.
the tar trapped animals in.
were the oil shacks are were the tar was.
they find a ton of bones in the tar pits.
there were about 700 different plants.
fossils can tell you
age by radio active dating
behavior by if there is any skull marks from a kick of something
what they ate by how there teeth are
environment they lived in
carnivore or herbivore by teeth structure
5 things I learned from the video was how you could tell what the animals ate from their teeth, that a lot of animals that lived in America are ansestors to others that live in Africa now. Also how the La brea tar pits area had much more vegitation and a wide variety of plants. I also learned that it only took about an inch or two too trap a mamoth. You can also see from the fossils that are found about how big the animal was.
Also Mr. Hoopman why didn't they mention the human skeleton that was found there? why wsn't she mentioned in the video?
because predatores toda are bigger than the the prey today but back then the prey were bigger than the predatores so it would take more pred. to take one down/or the prey died in the tar scavangers and predatores jump an eat the prey but they get stuck to
What you can find out from the La Brea Tar Pits is; what lived back then, how the creatures and plants lived, how the climate was like, what they ate by observing the teeth, and what the area probably looked like. I think that the 10 to 1 ratio of predators is because if one herbivore gets stuck, then the predators would try to get the dead thing and get stuck in the asphalt.
We can learn
•what the animal is
•when it lived
•how old it is
•what they ate
• if they had any injuries and how they got them.
Some things a fossil can tell is; what type of animal it is, predator, prey, bird, mammal, fish, reptile anphibian, the characteristics of an animal, size, shape, weight, color, length, height, what the animal ate, by looking at the teeth, and/ or looking what is in the teeth, the number of animals during that time, if the animal flourished or if it was underfed and malnourished, how it died, when it died, what other animals lived during that time, if it ever was injured, maybe by fight or something else, which can give us insight into if it was a violent animal, and how intelligent the animal was. Those are some things we can tell from an animal fossil. A plant fossil can give us insight into; the amount of vegetation, any droughts or infestation, the climate, wet seasons and dry seasons and climates for the both, and what the landscape was like in the area.
And the theory to why so many predator are found compared to prey(10-1) is that a prey animal would become stuck and many predators would come to eat it trapping them all, or that a wolf, the dire or grey whcih bothe existed during that time, traveled in a pack so several predators would go in with only one prey.
The La Brea Tar Pits "hardy bacteria embedded in the natural asphalt are eating away at the petroleum and burping up methane
1. what animals ate (leaves, grass, meat)
2. what animals looked like
3. what type of vegetaion grew in that area
4. what Pangea looked like
5. descendents
6. where that animal lived (water/land)
7. age (absolute/relative
8. what period that animals from
9. habitats
10.(if predator) what animal it ate and how it killed that animal
11. types of animals
The La Brea Tar Pits bubble because of bacteria embedded in the natural asphalt are eating away at the petroleum and realeases methane gas that causes the bubbles.
all fossils can tell a story about how they died or what they ate, and what thier habitats must have looked like or what they looked like and if they were carnivores, herbivores or omnivores, and if they were foragers or browsers.
What we learned from the fossils in the La Brea Tar Pits:
-mammoths lived there
-sabor-toothed tigers lived there
-over 100 tons of animals got stuck in the pits
-over 2,00 sabor-toothed tiger teeth were found in the pits so far
-camels and ground sloths lived there
-sabor-toothed tigers used their front legs to pull prey into teeth
-from the tiniest fragments of fossil come the biggest conclusions
-seasons were more wet then versus now
-the victim that there was the most of was the Columbian Mammoth
-we can learn a lot of information from the animal's teeth
-40,000 years ago there was 4 different species of ground sloth
-American Mastadon lived there
-American Mastadon=browser Mammoth=grazer we know this from the teeth
-lamnd was covered with trees and grass
-mammoths were last there 12,000 years ago
-2 species of bison lived there
-male bison were built for fighting
-age the bison by looking at teeth
-bison migrated across america and were only at the tar pits for about 2 months
-horses lkived there
-pronghorn lived there and still do
-pronghorn have lived almost unchanged
-american lion lived there
-american lion was larger than a siberian tiger
-american lion had largest brain of any big cat
-therefore the american lion was smart enough to hunt in prides and could take down almost any prey because of it
-most numerous predator there and then was the wolf
-over 2,00 wolves dead in the tar
-bison often kicked the wolves
-sabor-toothed tiger had the most broken bones of those found in the tar
-scavenging was a profitable way of life
-one scavenger bird had a wingspan of 3.5 meters or 11.48 feet, it was one of the biggest birds ever known on earth
-largest carnivore of la brea was the short-nosed bear
-for every one prey there were 10 predators back then
-dead mammoths drew predators from a large area
-the more legs an animal had the more dangerous the tar was for them
-when prey got stuck, predators came to eat them, more predators came to eat them and then got stuck and so on, it created a recurring cycle that realed in a lot of animals
-in 1,000 years almost all mammals went extinct
A lot of animals have been preserved in the tar pits. It doesn't take a lot of tar to trap the animals. An inch deep is all an animal needs to get trapped. The LaBrea Tar Pits have been trapping animals for 50,000 years and has been around for 35 million years.
the fossils can also tell you how old they are or what species they are, if they were a land or sea creater.
The tar in the la brea tar pits is not hot. The tar i smade by oil coming up through cracks in the earth. The thin part of the oil evaporates and the thick part stays, which creates the sticky tar. thousands of years ago animals used to get suck in the tar, they would soon die, sometimes tey attracked preditors, thy got stuck, and slowly died too. They turned to bones and we dug down and find they're fossils.
I think that theres more preditors than prey because many of the preditors were smaller than they're prey, so they could hunt together and take down a bigger animal, the bigger animal is big enough to feel 3 or more preditors, so you dont need as much prey as you do preditors.
Example: if 3 sabor tooth cats took down a mamoth, the could all eat a good amount and then they would leave it there. Some more animals such as aground sloth could find the remains of this dead mamonth and feast on what's left. So 4 preditors ate off of one prey.
For about every preditor there is normaly 10 prey. That's how it is today but back thousands of years ago it doesnt have to be like that.(:
uniformiarianism: a fish is still a fish.<3
1. How old they are- radioactive dating.
2. What they eat-lookng at their teeth, and guessing.
3. Characteristics-size, type, what it ate, ect.
4.You can find out what the environment was like-seeing if the animals are living today, where they found it.
5. Carnivore/herbivore- what kind of teeth it has
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