Despite smelling like a highway repaving site and looking like a muddy lake, the La Brea Tar Pits are a natural wonder tens of thousands of years old.

Since 1906, more than a million bones have been recovered from the pits, representing more than 200 species of invertebrates, including saber-tooth cats, woolly mammoths and giant sloths. The very 1960s George Page Museum next to the fenced-off tar pits has preserved skeletons and replicas of what Wilshire Boulevard and Hancock Park looked like several millennia ago, when mammoths roamed Miracle Mile. The museum houses reconstructed animal skeletons (which are made up of the bones recovered from the sticky ooze), robotic sculptures, a laboratory, interactive displays, photos illustrating the area's history and painted murals imagining LA's history. Fake mammoths now "live" in the pits, but there are no dinosaurs here. During the summer months, visitors can stop by and watch a real, live excavation in Pit 91.