Deep Look

Deep in the heart of Los Angeles.

Near Beverly Hills.

A gooey substance seeps up from a massive underground reservoir and traps nearly every living thing that touches it.

In this excavation pit, among the bones of the dead and gone, one creature thrives: the petroleum fly.

This maggot is its baby.

Aww.

Feasting on the misfortunes of others.

Animals have been getting stuck here for tens of thousands of years.

Including creatures that are long gone: dire wolves, mammoths and saber-toothed cats.

These fossils were all found here, in the La Brea Tar Pits.

While some call this viscous substance tar, its actually natural asphalt.

Mix that with sand, gravel and rocks, and youve got a road.

The pits are treasure troves for paleontologists, who estimate they hold millions of fossils.

The petroleum fly larvae squirm among them with ease.

The front part of their body is lipophobic, meaning it repels oil.

This helps the larvaestay afloat.

They breathe through these snorkel-like tubes, called spiracles,on their backside.

The spiracles secrete water to keep oil out.

No clogging here.

Like all growing children, the larvae are ravenous.

They seek out insects trapped in the asphalt.

They could search for food on the water that sometimes collects on the tar pits, but the asphalt is a far better hunting ground.

More prey and less competition.

This larva moves in on a dead cricket.

It pokes its way into the crickets exoskeleton and devours it from the inside out.

As it eats, the larva also swallows a lot of asphalt.

See that dark stuff in its guts?

If we ate this way, asphalt would get absorbed into our bodies and could give us cancer.

But the toxic stuff simply passes through the larvas insides, leaving it unscathed.

And on the outside of its body?

The larva actually needs the asphalt to survive.

Without this protection, it would dry out and die.

Even larvae like to moisturize.

After bulking up, the larvae transform into handsome adults about the size of a fruit fly.

Although they have wings, they spend much of their lives strolling on the surface of the tar pits.

Scientists arent yet sure how, but the flys feet repel the stuff.

If the flys wings or any other body part touches the asphalt, theyre doomed.

They could even be eaten by one of their own larvae.

But if they stay on top of things, theyll spawn a new generation of sludge-loving survivors.