When I visited the famous La Brea asphalt seeps last year for a Smilodon storya Smilodon storya Smilodon story, I asked curator John Harris and collections manager Aisling Farrell if they had any young sabercats in the rows upon rows of chocolate-colored bone collected from the site. They led me to a specific tray among the racks of immaculately-cleaned Smilodon bones and, sure enough, there were skull pieces from several juvenile cats nestled against the plastic.

It was heartbreaking to think of the unwary saberkittens becoming trapped in the black ooze.