USA: The mammoth, bison and giant sloth remains found beneath Wilshire Boulevard aren’t new — LA Metro’s paleontology team first showed them to reporters back in 2019. What is new is a retrospective video the agency released this month, three months after the D Line extension that unearthed them finally opened to riders.

Zed, a Columbian mammoth skull in the paleontology lab at the La Brea Tar Pits, Los Angeles
Zed, a Columbian mammoth skull at the La Brea Tar Pits, Los Angeles. Illustrative photo. Photo: WikiWhens, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Metro shared the video on Aug. 14, and it was picked up by outlets including KTLA. “We’ve been fortunate in finding some really spectacular, beautifully preserved specimens,” a paleontologist featured in the video said, adding the team hopes some will eventually go on public display. Railway Supply reported in May that the D Line’s Section 1 opening had turned up the same collection during construction.

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A count that’s stayed the same since 2019

The “more than 500 fossils” figure isn’t a fresh tally — paleontologists working with contractor Cogstone Resource Management first presented specimens including mammoths, ancient bison, horses and giant ground sloths at a media event at the La Brea Tar Pits Museum in March 2019, and the same number has been cited consistently in Metro’s project updates since. Excavation was concentrated at the Wilshire/La Brea and Wilshire/La Cienega station sites, where paleontological monitors worked alongside tunneling crews throughout construction, embedded there because the route runs adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits.

Where the fossils have gone, and where they haven’t

The destination for the finds was also settled years ago: specimens recovered from soil go to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, while any recovered directly from tar deposits go to the Tar Pits Museum, a branch of the same institution. The announcement does not specify whether any new specimens appear in the August video beyond what was already documented in 2019, or set a firm date for any of the fossils to go on public display.

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