H. Schmökel

Foraminal widening indicating a spinal nerve tumor in the saber-tooth cat Smilodon fatalis from Rancho La Brea

Tracing the health of extinct populations is important. Documenting this in deep time is challenging, but skeletal markers of disease can be preserved in fossils. Notably, a high incidence of spinal malformations has been recorded among specimens found in the La Brea Tar Pits, possibly because of an accumulation of exp...