HarHarVeryFunny
6 hours ago
Apparently "sabre-toothed" salmon is really a misnomer - more like tusked salmon.
https://news.uoregon.edu/saber-no-more-giant-prehistoric-sal...
Another very cool fossil site in LA is the La Brea Tar Pits museum, which still has tar pits on the museum grounds, and has real sabre-tooths (lions) and other critters like mammoths that got trapped in the tar pits.
hodgesrm
4 hours ago
The coolest and most surprising part is that the tar pits are still there! Apparently the seeps have been there for tens of thousands of years. [0] (Fun LA tourist activity: jump in yourself and contribute to the fossil record.)
I was similarly surprised to find that something similar occurs on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. This came to many people's attention after the Macondo well blowout. [1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Brea_Tar_Pits
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09670...
njarboe
an hour ago
I quite enjoy visiting the La Brea Tar Pits and often do when I'm in LA. The geologist in me really enjoys seeing the natural oil seeps. The area around the museum has large open grassy areas. Often new seeps develop in the grass and you'll see an orange cone placed next to a new spot of oil with bubbles slowly growing and busting with the strong smell of tar/asphalt.
teachrdan
3 hours ago
Fun fact: la brea means "the tar", so the La Brea Tar Pits literally translates to "the the tar tar pits".
envp
3 hours ago
Another joins the ranks of Chai Tea, Naan Bread, and Lake Michigan :D
SllX
an hour ago
The others I knew but Lake Michigan I did not, which prompted me to look it up:
> The name derives from a gallicized variant of the original Ojibwe word ᒥᓯᑲᒥ (mishigami),[c] meaning "large water" or "large lake".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan
TIL. To be fair, there is a whole landmass right next to that mishigami sharing a name we do need to distinguish it from.
BobaFloutist
36 minutes ago
It's kind of funny how much the sounds of mishigami feel like they could equally have come from Hebrew or Japanese. Interesting overlap of mouth-feel.
OJFord
2 hours ago
To be fair, 'naan bread' is like 'toona fish' or 'feta cheese' which AmE does in English anyway.
conradev
2 hours ago
Yeah – they put cones around the park where the tar is still peeking through the grass. Watch your step!
anonymousiam
5 hours ago
(Link to the George C. Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits.)
jrh3
an hour ago
Tusked salmon at best.
helpfulContrib
5 hours ago
Misnomer? I don't agree.
Its definitely "a big pointy tooth dominating the mouth" kind of feature.
Could also have been called a snaggle-tooth salmon, I guess ..
In any case, definitely an interesting fish.