Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1922-10-05
-. Tigers Skeleton Found.

,;ser. with the bones that the
-, possessed during his lifetime
.nnoo or 100000 years ago or longer,
-. ,een recovered from the millions
y zones in the asphalt fossil pits Of
p,o,ho la Brea in Los Angeles and
- sksIeton is mounted in the Los
lies County Museum OF Science
ani Art.
49,. from thousands of bones found
- the same pits, bones of prehistoric
,,.,s the imperial elephants, fif-
49,, feet high, woody mammoths, mas
Lions and prehistoric varieties of
- hears. wolves, coyotes, cats,
,,.ss horses. bison and other animals.
The sabre-tooth had two long teeth
,;ys sasres. which curved downward
o,4 backward from the lower jaw.
The animal itself, it is judged from
.,s skeleton, closely resembles the
..sss,t.dav wildcat, but was about the
s;,s of the modern tiger. II was able
:. s,sb 10 death and kill many Of its
o;oa,,ic contemporaries, but the over
osciercv Of the sabres probably led TO
;,s own extinction. The great stab
h;oo teeth helped it in killing but in
.,,farej with eating. The sabre-tooth
I'D take only small bites of the an
;.,,r :, lanced to death, and it is sup
.osaI that the armored cat lived main
l.. during the later stages Of its de-
rs,onrent by drinking the blood of
,;c,ir,s rather than eating them. Some
tens mr. hundreds of thousands Of years
400 changed climatic conditions in
terfered with the nourishment of the
GIGANTIC animals which lived in South
o., California. The soil did not pro-
duce enough for the big herb eaters.
When they vanished the sabre-tooth,
the great wolf and other gigantic
rrejatory beasts could find no victims
and they died out, too.
The fossil pits of the Rancho la
Brea are the richest in the world,
though the specimens belong only to
the Plcistocene or Glacial Epoch
which Immediately preceded histori-
cal times. The asphalt pits are the
best provided with fossils because they
served as perfect traps for the big
mammals They caught the man.
moths and camels and sabre tooths as
hy-paper catches flies.
Once boiling lakes of asphalt, these
cooled and covered with dust. The
footing would look like that of the
surrounding plane. An elephant or
giant hear or sloth would be involved
before he was aware. Efforts to free
himself stuck him harder to the tar.
His struggles or his death brought the
other animals to feed on him, and they
in turn we're glued to the asphalt.
Eventually, all died and sank deep
under the surface, so that the trap was
reset Evidently blasts of hot gas,
breaking through from beneath, fire.
quently caused the pits to boil again
and prevented qualification, so that
hundreds of generations we're captur-
ed and embalmed in the asphalt, IN
excellent preservative which was, in
TACT, used by the Egyptians for EN-
eaming The trapping power of these
asphalt pits are still active. Rabbits
and other small mammals are fire.
quentIy caught in them today. The
saore-tooth is described as follows by
t. /. Wiman who took part in the ex-
cavationS under Frank S. Daggett,
Director of the Museum:
These sahres, which give the ami
mai ITS name and prominence, are
SIMPLY the i. n devco ped upper
canine teeth. ta;;-ac1 al serrulated
Oh front and back edges. TIE W.T.
structure OF the animal is adapted -
prey upon the large herbivores Ct that
U'e. Inc limb bones show tremen-
SouS ma -'.ar power that would en-
1O'e the animal to spring upon the
'1'A OF even the bulkiest of the great
Fua1FH7cls. Its sharp sabres would
''s''y touch the deeply hidden blood
vessels OF its victims, but as they
|Ds' nave interfered seriously with
''"o2 ne flesh it is assumed that
WIS S''re-iooth was more blood
U,nser than a flesh eater.
IH''Hc'I'n of the sabre-tooth may
Wi nave 'osu!ted from decreasing
nr"0eTs Or complete disappearance of
"oss A1c> Of large mammals that had