Tar Pits in Ecuador

On the Santa Elena Peninsula in southwestern Ecuador several asphaltic localities have preserved fossils of birds, small mammals, carnivores, proboscideans and ungulates, as well as large numbers of giant ground sloths! Some of these seeps are consistent with traps similar to what has been inferred for Rancho La Brea, but others appear to constitute fossils deposited in fluvial or estuarine contexts that were preserved by secondary infiltration of asphalt.

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View of the bone bed at 'Tanque Loma'