I Can Haz Mammoth?

[CalMeacham]

Scientists dig for Ice Age fossils in Los Angeles

I saw this story about Digging Up Fossils in LA and thought "Heck, they’ve been doing that for years at La Brea. Darned if the article wasn’t about sites near the present La Brea pits. This is news?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110309/ap_on_re_us/us_la_tar_pits

But then this line caught my eye:

So far, scientists have unearthed five of the 23 boxed deposits, removing some 16,000 fossil bones. Among the finds: partial skulls and lower jaws of half a dozen saber-toothed kittens, several ribs and skull of a camel, and assorted remains of a giant jaguar, ground sloth and baby mammoths.

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! Saber-Toothed Kittens!!
I can just see them, play-attacking each other, with their tiny little saber-teeth protruding out over their lower jaws and batting each other soft-pawed with their incipient disembowelling claws. They’d be just so Squee!

Of course, people have already imagined such things:

http://www.ratemydrawings.com/drawings/the-past/120287.html

http://art.mfields.org/saber-tooth-kitten/

[Sailboat]

The kittehs r cute, but I’m much more alarmed by this:

So far, scientists have unearthed five of the 23 boxed deposits

The deposits were already boxed before they were unearthed??? What mystery is this? Tidy tar? Pre-human scientists organizing fossils for our benefit?

Or do they mean “So far, scientists have opened five of the 23 boxes from the deposits,” which, although MUCH less interesting, at least makes some kind of goddamned sense.

[Smeghead]

How awesome would it be to be digging around and find a box labeled “Fluffy”, inside of which was a sabertooth kitten skeleton?

[Anaglyph]

For the past three years, scientists have been sifting through a significant trove of bones and a nearly intact mammoth skeleton discovered in 2006 during the construction of an underground garage next to the tar pits.

So they retrieved them in an emergency dig, boxed them and now are getting around to processing their finds of 4-5 years ago.

[Sailboat]

@Anaglyph

So they retrieved them in an emergency dig, boxed them and now are getting around to processing their finds of 4-5 years ago.

Yeah, I get that. But that’s not what “unearthed…boxed deposits” means.

[CalMeacham]

More Smilodon Kitten pix:

http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3F_adv_prop%3Dimage%26va%3Dsmilodon%2Bkitten%26fr%3Dyfp-t-980&w=800&h=302&imgurl=www.geol.umd.edu%2F~jmerck%2Fbsci392%2Flecture40%2Fsmilokittenss.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.geol.umd.edu%2F~jmerck%2Fbsci392%2Flecture40%2Flecture40.html&size=93KB&name=family+of+Smilod...&p=smilodon+kitten&oid=c8f598a39a7e49c7be1e1697666e41dd&fr2=&no=6&tt=212&sigr=120okl62q&sigi=11si60gn5&sigb=12svphjg8&.crumb=UKCydYmXxxq

(scroll to bottom)
http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3F_adv_prop%3Dimage%26va%3Dsmilodon%2Bkitten%26fr%3Dyfp-t-980&w=650&h=302&imgurl=www.wildvoices.com%2Fcontent%2Fimages%2Fst%2Fst6.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wildvoices.com%2Fcontent%2Fst%2Fst6.html&size=36KB&name=Barry!%26quot%3B+she+excl...&p=smilodon+kitten&oid=24eaf6857a4f80f996430fab2d1f23ce&fr2=&no=2&tt=212&sigr=11dhu4g56&sigi=11cborrfu&sigb=12svphjg8&.crumb=UKCydYmXxxq