Tuesday, July 28, 2026

Question: California’s official state fossil is an Ice Age predator whose bones have been pulled by the thousands from a tar pit in the middle of Los Angeles. What animal is it?

Answer: The saber-toothed cat, or Smilodon fatalis. More than 2,000 of them have been recovered from the La Brea Tar Pits, where they got stuck chasing prey already mired in the asphalt. California named the saber-toothed cat its state fossil in 1973.