The Grim Wolf of the Tar Pits 



THE GREAT EXTINCT WOLF FROM THE ASPHALT DEPOSITS AT RANCHO 

 LA BREA NEAR LOS ANGELES 



Skeleton of Canis dirus recently mounted in the American Museum 

 Bv W. D MATTHEW 



NO doubt the purist will take excep- 

 tion to my title, if he happens 

 to notice it. The Latin adjec- 

 tive which I have freely translated by 

 "grim" means rather dire, dreadful, 

 terrible, than grim (L. torvus or trux). 

 And tar of course is not really the same 

 thing as asphalt. But the objection is 

 after all rather superficial; for the ex- 

 pression "grim wolf" is a familiar one, 

 and whether used in fairy tales or in 

 classic poetry it seems to carry a refer- 

 ence rather to the destructive and ter- 

 rible qualities of the animal than to 

 any harshness or savagery of aspect. 

 For the wolf is after all a handsome 

 beast; fully equal in good looks to his 

 domesticated brethren, and distinguished 

 from them only by the untamed wildness 

 of his ways and a disposition to include 

 human beings and other fairy tale heroes 

 as proper, not to say principal, items of 

 his diet. On these grounds I hold that 

 "grim wolf" is a perfectly proper and 

 accurate translation of Canis dirus. 

 It is at least as good as any other term 

 that could be substituted, and more 

 familiar and euphonic. 



As for tar pits of course, it is incor- 

 rect — asphalt is n't tar. But it looks 

 and acts like tar, and the phrase gives 

 just the concept one wishes to convey 

 of the black, semi-liquid tenacious sub- 

 stance that filled these pits or chimneys 

 during the time when they were active, 

 and served as a trap for the unwary 

 animals that ventured within its clutch. 

 Whereas asphalt, to the average reader, 

 is connected with hard firm roads, a bit 



slippery for animals in wet weather but 

 not at all like the treacherous soft sub- 

 stance of the La Brea pits. Tar-pits 

 is the term in common use in Los Angeles 

 as far as I could observe, and this is 

 probably the reason why. 



But enough of linguistics. The sub- 

 ject of this notice is a new fossil skeleton 

 just installed in the hall of the Age of 

 Mammals on the fourth floor of the 

 American Museum. This extinct wolf 

 is a near relative of the living wolves, 

 which range all over the northern world, 

 but is of somewhat larger size, and dis- 

 tinguished from any of its modern con- 

 geners by various small peculiarities in 

 the teeth and skull. Its remains have 

 been found in the older Pleistocene 

 formations of various western states, 

 but nowhere so perfectly preserved or so 

 extraordinarily abundant as in the 

 asphalt deposits at Rancho La Brea, 

 where it is the most abundant of all the 

 marvelous fossil fauna of that unique 

 formation. More than a thousand com- 

 plete skulls, and a proportionate number 

 of skeleton bones have been disinterred 

 there, chiefly by the Los Angeles mu- 

 seum and the University of California. 

 Dr. Merriam tells us ^ that Canis dirus 

 "was evidently the dominant type of 

 wolf in this region at the time of deposi- 

 tion of the asphalt beds. This species 

 includes the largest individuals of the 

 Canis group known from America. Some 

 of the specimens exceed in dimensions all 



• Merriam, J. C "The Fauna of Rancho La Brea," 

 Part II, Ganidae, Memoirs of the University of California, 

 Vol. I, Part II. p. 218. 



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