Researchers at Los Angeles' La Brea tar pits are focusing more on small fossils such as snails and insects instead of hunting for large prehistoric beasts.
In ancient days, an animal may have fallen into the tar pits; as the body decayed it attracted rats and insects which were also preserved, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Researchers believe these smaller specimens could help them understand what California looked like 11,000 to 50,000 years ago, the Associated Press reported.
"Earlier excavations really missed a great part of the story," John Harris, chief curator at the George C. Page Museum, which oversees the fossil collection, told the AP. "[People] were only taking out bones they could see, but it's the hidden bones that provide clues to the environment."
The museum recently celebrated a century of searching for fossils. Over the years "5.5 million bones representing more than 600 species of animals and plants," have been found in the pits. There are still believed to be a treasure trove of fossils in the tar pits waiting to be discovered.
In 1913, what would one day be Los Angeles County's Natural History Museum, launched a project that looked at only the best-preserved fossils, the researchers are now going back to find what they missed.
Researchers started digging in Pit 91 in 1969; the pits produced an array of fossils over the following 40 years. Excavations on the site have been temporarily paused as researchers have been focusing one a number of fossils found during the construction of a garage a few miles away.
"I can't think of any other site that is as rich," Sarah George, executive director of the Natural History Museum of Utah who used to be curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, told the AP.
"[Every time a foundation is dug] more old blocks of tar filled with fossils came out of the ground," George said.
The team hopes to continue looking at the small critters, and grooves in the bones of larger animals that show evidence of insect and rodent feeding.
"These tiny bits and pieces may not look exciting, but they have become the coolest things on this planet," Luis Chiappe, vice president of research and collections at the Natural History Museum, told the LA Times. "The menageries of insects, lizards and snakes emerging from our excavations are telling stories you can't get from a mammoth skeleton alone."
The researchers have been particularly interested in the skull of an aging saber-toothed tiger, named "Gimli," that died in the pit.
"Next to Gimli we found skeletal remains of at least 18 horned lizards, which eat ants," Shelley Cox, Page laboratory supervisor, said. "So we were able to make a connection that sharpens our knowledge of a moment in time and place."
"The ultimate aim is to understand how the whole ecosystem responded to change in the past - what thrived, what went extinct, when and why," John Southon, a researcher at UC Irvine's school of physical sciences, said. "The answers can help us make more intelligent predictions about our own future."
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