La Brea Tar Pits & Museum

The La Brea Tar Pits are an active paleontological excavation in the middle of Los Angeles, where natural asphalt seeps have trapped and preserved Ice Age animals for tens of thousands of years. Visitors can watch fossils of dire wolves, saber-toothed cats, and mammoths being cleaned in the on-site laboratory. The adjoining museum displays specimens recovered from the pits, several of which still bubble in the surrounding park.