. Another difference is in the structure of the legs, as those of the dire wolf are shorter in relation to the body. The dire wolf evolved during the Pleistocene, and became extinct by about 16,000 years ago. One of the best places to learn about the dire wolf is at the George C. Page Museum of La Brea Discoveries, in Los Angeles, CA. It was built for the purpose of housing and displaying the fossils of the famous Rancho La Brea tar pits. The remains of some 2,000 dire wolves have been excavated from the deposit's zones of ancient, hardened asphalt. Because so many individuals have been found here, the dire wolf is one of the most thoroughly studied of all fossil canids. The tar pits, which came into existence some 40,000 years ago, acted as a natural trap for many kinds of animals, from enormous mammoths to tiny insects. Crude oil emerging from deep within the Earth's crust gradually thickened at the surface via a series of asphalt flows. Because water does not mix well with tar, rain often accumulated on the surface of these flows, giving them the appearance of being ordinary water holes. .