Get out and explore any of the 82 great hiking trails located right here in L.A. This guide book features short and long day hikes while keeping you close to home.
Fossil carnivores (Order Carnivora) consist of a large group of mammalian predators that play a very important role in the ecology of mammal communities. Fossils carnivores are generally rare due to their position in the top of the food chain, but diligent search for these fossils sometimes results in unexpected discoveries.
My own research includes the skunk family (Mephitidae), the weasel family (Mustelidae), the hyena family (Hyaenidae), as well as carnivore faunas from various places in the world.
This nearly complete skull and lower jaws of an ancestral skunk, Martinogale faulli Wang, Whistler, Takeuchi, 2005, is the oldest and most primitive member of this family in North America. This beautiful specimen is from the Red Rock Canyon, Mojave Desert, California. Click here to see a Naturalist article about this specimen.
This is only the second specimen of a red panda in North America (the first one is in our collection). This upper first molar is the holotype of Pristinailurus bristoli Wallace and Wang, 2004 from the Gray Site in eastern Tennessee, where a sinkhole deposit allows us a rare glimpse into the past biota in that part of the country during the late Miocene and Pliocene.
This partial skull of Amphicynodon teilhardi Matthew and Granger, 1924 is from the Hsanda Gol Formation of Mongolia (Oligocene). This small fox-sized carnivore is close to the ancestral forms that gave rise to later arctoides (large group of carnivorans including bears, raccoons, and weasels). (see Wang, McKenna, Dashzeveg, 2005)
One of the surprising discoveries in our fieldwork in Tabenbuluk is this skull of Kinometaxia guangpui Wang, Qiu, Wang, 2004. This early mustelid seems to be related to a highly peculiar group (Leptarctines) of badger-like animals in the Miocene of North America.