Unable to scavenge the previously plentiful carcasses of North American megafauna, the continent lost its teratorns—among the largest birds ever to fly—along with many of its condors. It lost its dire wolves and its saber-toothed cats. It lost an American cheetah, as well as one of the largest cats ever, the American lion—bigger even than its African cousin. You can find the remains of many of these animals where they died; in downtown Los Angeles, for instance, their bones are preserved in the muck of natural asphalt in the tar pits of La Brea, along the city’s congested Miracle Mile.
