Workers digging out the foundations for a downtown LA car park have unearthed a nearly intact mammoth skeleton.
Dubbed 'Zed', experts believe the male animal probably died in his late 40s.
Zed may be dead, but he is estimated to be 80% complete, missing only a rear leg, a vertebra, and the top of his skull - not bad going for a 40,000 year veteran.
However, despite today providing an excellent chance to understand the last Ice Age, poor Zed had a hard life, suffering from arthritis and three broken ribs - possibly from fights with other mammoths.
And it only got worse during his final hours, as he perished after becoming stuck in the La Brea tar pits, from which many other discoveries have been retrieved in the past 100 years.
Researchers from the nearby George C. Page Museum, which guards the Le Brea legacy, have been searching through 23 crates of material removed from the pits in 2007. Sorting through the contents, which are mixed with mud and clay, will take up to five years.
Laboratory supervisor Shelley Cox told Reuters: "What makes this so special, so exciting for us is that Zed is a complete specimen."
Other important discoveries in the treasure trove included a complete sabre-tooth cat skeleton, a giant prehistoric American lion, and dire wolf and ground sloth bones.
