Pleistocene animal skulls in a bubbling tar pit! Featuring a Columbian Mammoth, Smilodon, Dire Wolfs, Short-Faced Bear, and Camelops. The horns are from the Long-Horned Bison and Dwarf Pronghorn. All of them are extinct species that have been excavated out of the La Brea Tar Pits.
A fossilized tooth of a Pleistocene aged camel, likely Camelops sp. from the Texas City Dike in Galveston County, Texas, United States. Although camels are not typically thought as native North American fauna, much like prehistoric horses, these animals once roamed the United States with Camelops being the last of the ancient American camels.
Terra: The Member's Magazine of The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. 1989 Wall Calender: Treasures of the Tar Pits. Illustration by Mark Hallett.
Story concept about prehistoric life in N. America set at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum and by the last of the great Missoula floods.
A tribe of humans experiencing the last of the Missoula glacial floods. There are four plots: 1) a grandmother and her eldest grandchild struggling to keep up w/ the tribe who are now on the move to the mountains w/ the increase in water flow downriver of the ice dam, meanwhile,
2) the father (son of grandmother) and mother searching for their 2nd son before the dam ruptures.
3) The youngest sibling out on a hunt, the tribe’s right of passage, on his own. Is completely unaware of the situation and is heading right in the direction of the ice dam, following a deer he had failed to kill several times. His story is shadowed by a raven watching from afar.
4) At this time, we follow a pair of mammoths who've fallen behind their herd. Following the death of a calf’s mother, she is taken under the care of her aunt.
As for the timeline, starts in late summer/autumn, then winter, and ends by springtime as the weather warms up.
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Artist’s Notes: Title is a nod to the film, “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”.
Went over a few different design choices for the sabre-tooth. From big lips to the more traditional toothy grin (as it seems indecisive for the moment). From short hair to shaggy, almost lion-like mane fur coverage.
