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  • Cope And Marsh Destroyed Dig Sites To Prevent The Other From Making New Discoveries on Random Details About The Bone Wars: Feud That Created And Almost Destroyed Paleontology

    (#1) Cope And Marsh Destroyed Dig Sites To Prevent The Other From Making New Discoveries

    The Bone Wars started in the name of discovery, but that noble purpose was eventually lost in the pursuit of competition. Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh engaged in some destructive shenanigans as the contest heated up. Both Cope and Marsh were perfectly happy to dynamite dig-sites when they were finished with them rather than risk the other coming in and finding something valuable. In other words, there could be entire dinosaur species that are never discovered because these two thought their rivalry was more important than the preservation of prehistoric specimens.

  • Marsh Publicly Embarrassed Cope After A Bone-Headed Error on Random Details About The Bone Wars: Feud That Created And Almost Destroyed Paleontology

    (#2) Marsh Publicly Embarrassed Cope After A Bone-Headed Error

    One of the earliest skirmishes in the Bone Wars took place in 1870, when Cope discovered and reconstructed an Elasmosaurus specimen—or so he thought. Marsh publicly ridiculed Cope after it was revealed that Cope had accidentally placed the skull of the Elasmosaurus at the end of its tail, assuming it was a giant snake-like dinosaur. Marsh wrote in a letter to The New York Herald, "When I informed Professor Cope of it his wounded vanity received a shock from which it has never recovered, and he has since been my bitter enemy."

    The actual discovery of this error came from another esteemed paleontologist, Joseph Leidy, who was a mentor of Cope’s. Cope attempted to buy back and destroy the scientific journals that contained his mistake, while Leidy and Marsh worked to expose him.

  • The Intensity Of The Bone Wars Led To Many Scientific Mistakes on Random Details About The Bone Wars: Feud That Created And Almost Destroyed Paleontology

    (#3) The Intensity Of The Bone Wars Led To Many Scientific Mistakes

    While the Bone Wars were great for the field of paleontology in the long-term, they made a real mess of things in the short-term. In their haste to claim new species and beat the other to the prize, both Marsh and Cope engaged in some sloppy work full of errors and inaccuracies. This often led to them accidentally, or perhaps purposefully, “discovering” creatures that had already been discovered. It took paleontologists decades to sort through all their mislabeled fossils. At the end of their careers, Marsh and Cope had discovered 142 different types of dinosaur between them, but fewer than 40 of those discoveries are still considered valid today.

    In one infamous incident, Marsh thought he had discovered a new species that he called the Brontosaurus, but it turned out to be another example of an Apatosaurus, a species he had already discovered. This error wasn’t discovered until 1903, by which point the “Brontosaurus” had already become a well-known dinosaur. This was held up as an example of the Bone Wars gone mad. In a surprising twist, further study in 2015 of Marsh’s alleged Brontosaurus revealed significant differences between that original specimen and the Apatosaurus species, meaning that Brontosaurus did exist and Marsh had been right all along in this case.

  • Thumb of The Bone Wars Were Largely Conducted By Secret Paleontology Agents Traveling Across The Country video

    (#4) The Bone Wars Were Largely Conducted By Secret Paleontology Agents Traveling Across The Country

    Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope often worked in the field early in their careers, but the majority of the Bone Wars were conducted through proxies. Both Marsh and Cope sent agents, some of whom included their students, across America to find dig sites and procure the best fossils available. These agents were also tasked with obscuring their actions from the other side and attempting to stay one step ahead of their rivals. Marsh’s superior financial means and looser morals allowed his agents to frequently gain an edge through outright bribery, but Cope also engaged in his fair share of shady activity.

  • Eventually, Agents Weren’t Enough And The Paleontologists Hired Dinosaur Rustlers on Random Details About The Bone Wars: Feud That Created And Almost Destroyed Paleontology

    (#5) Eventually, Agents Weren’t Enough And The Paleontologists Hired Dinosaur Rustlers

    As the intensity of the Bone Wars picked up, the pair started to hire dinosaur rustlers to gain an advantage over the other. At the hotly-contested area of Como Bluff, WY, Cope hired a prospector to steal bones from Marsh’s dig site. This became standard practice, with dinosaur rustlers thieving fossils, spying on excavations, and even pelting rival workers with stones. On at least one occasion, guns were brandished and the Bone Wars threatened to turn into a real war, but cooler heads prevailed, and the bloodshed remained purely theoretical.

  • The Bone Wars Began With A Simple Case Of Bribery on Random Details About The Bone Wars: Feud That Created And Almost Destroyed Paleontology

    (#6) The Bone Wars Began With A Simple Case Of Bribery

    Joseph Leidy, a respected paleontologist and mentor to Edward Cope, discovered the first American dinosaur, a Hadrosaurus, in Haddonfield, NJ, in 1856. The Bone Wars began more than a decade later when Cope joined the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences and began fossil-hunting at the same site by proxy—paying workers to dig up bones and send them to him. Othniel Marsh visited Haddonfield in 1868, and was so impressed with the fossils there that he bribed some of the workers to send any interesting finds his way instead of to Cope. When Cope found out, he was furious, and the Bone Wars had begun.

  • At One Point, Marsh And Cope Were Good Enough Friends That They Named Dinosaurs After One Another on Random Details About The Bone Wars: Feud That Created And Almost Destroyed Paleontology

    (#7) At One Point, Marsh And Cope Were Good Enough Friends That They Named Dinosaurs After One Another

    Although Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope became lifelong rivals in the field of paleontology, they started their professional relationship on friendlier terms. The two met while studying abroad in Berlin in 1864 and were apparently rather impressed with one another. Early in their fossil-hunting careers, both Cope and Marsh named species after one another.

    The two were likely too different to forge a lasting friendship, though. Marsh grew up poor and received a generous inheritance from his uncle to fund his career. He believed in Darwinism and had an attention to detail inspired by his modest upbringing. Cope, on the other hand, came from a wealthy family and had a looser, flashier approach to his research. He supported Neo-Lamarckism and became a professor despite little formal education.

  • Marsh Attempted To Use A Government Position To Seize Cope’s Fossils on Random Details About The Bone Wars: Feud That Created And Almost Destroyed Paleontology

    (#8) Marsh Attempted To Use A Government Position To Seize Cope’s Fossils

    The Bone Wars proved taxing to both participants, but it was Edward Drinker Cope who first felt the attrition. After losing his government gig and being forced to fund his fossil-hunting endeavors with his dwindling inheritance, Cope found his life in shambles—by 1889, he had lost his fortune, his wife, and his reputation. All Cope had left were his fossils, and Othniel Charles Marsh still didn't stop coming after him.

    In the early 1880s, Marsh became the head of the United States Geological Survey, and he used his position to push for a law saying that all fossils procured using any sort of government funding would become the property of the Smithsonian Museum. It was clear that this rule was intended to rob Cope of his remaining bones, but fortunately Cope had kept studious receipts, and could prove that the majority of his specimens were acquired with his own personal funds.

  • Letters Published By Cope In 1890 Destroyed Marsh's Reputation For Good on Random Details About The Bone Wars: Feud That Created And Almost Destroyed Paleontology

    (#9) Letters Published By Cope In 1890 Destroyed Marsh's Reputation For Good

    Incensed that Othniel Marsh had still tried to rob him of his fossils despite his destitution, Edward Drinker Cope set out to destroy his rival once and for all. Congress had opened an investigation of the U.S. Geological Survey and their potentially illegal activities in 1884, and in 1890, Cope published a meticulously-documented list of his rival’s many misdeeds—including bribery and other outright felonies. Much of this information had been gleaned through Cope’s paranoid habit of hiring individuals who had worked for Marsh in the past and pumping them for dirt on their former boss.

    Not only was Marsh asked to resign, but his own lack of records proved his ultimate undoing in an ironic twist. Marsh had kept few records of who had paid for his massive fossil collection, which meant that—according to the law he himself created in an attempt to strike at Cope—his collection belonged to the Smithsonian. Marsh lost a large portion of his fossils, and Cope had the last laugh in the decades-long Bone Wars.

  • The Paleontologists Sniped At One Another Through Scientific Journals And Battled Over Naming Rights on Random Details About The Bone Wars: Feud That Created And Almost Destroyed Paleontology

    (#10) The Paleontologists Sniped At One Another Through Scientific Journals And Battled Over Naming Rights

    Although the Bone Wars contained more than a few violent episodes, it was also a conflict between prolific scientists, and thus many of the battles occurred within the pages of scientific journals. Cope and Marsh continually sniped at one another, pointing out the other's errors and inaccuracies while defending their own claims. The two frequently attempted to rename creatures that the other had already claimed, including a memorable episode in which Cope, Marsh, and Joseph Leidy each cited different names for the same dinosaur that they had independently discovered, which they argued over through academic findings.

  • The Wild West Held Some Of Marsh And Cope's Greatest Discoveries on Random Details About The Bone Wars: Feud That Created And Almost Destroyed Paleontology

    (#11) The Wild West Held Some Of Marsh And Cope's Greatest Discoveries

    When railroad expansion opened up the American West in the 1870s, it also opened up a world of opportunity for fossil hunters, and Marsh and Cope raced to take advantage of this new frontier. The paleontology professors sent employees to states like Wyoming and Colorado in an attempt to discover new species before their rival. These new territories proved to be fertile grounds for paleontology, turning up significant finds like the Triceratops, Stegosaurus, and Allosaurus. Paleontology flourished, but unfortunately, the intensity of the competition between Marsh and Cope led to some seriously questionable science in the midst of all the discoveries.

  • Marsh Often Used Bribes To Obtain Fossils on Random Details About The Bone Wars: Feud That Created And Almost Destroyed Paleontology

    (#12) Marsh Often Used Bribes To Obtain Fossils

    Othniel Charles Marsh’s strategy to win the Bone Wars was usually rather simple—he used his financial backing to outbid Edward Drinker Cope by any means necessary. In fact, Marsh became so well-known for his use of bribery that others in the fossil trade began to use it against him. When some Union Pacific Railroad employees in Como Bluff, WY, discovered a treasure trove of fossils in the late 1870s, they contacted Marsh with an offer to sell, but (falsely) hinted that they were also negotiating with Cope—causing Marsh to pony up some extra-generous terms.

  • Cope Received A Government Appointment That Gave Him A Leg Up on Random Details About The Bone Wars: Feud That Created And Almost Destroyed Paleontology

    (#13) Cope Received A Government Appointment That Gave Him A Leg Up

    Edward Drinker Cope had the early advantage in the Bone Wars. In the early 1870s, Cope won a plum position with the U.S. Geological Survey that allowed him to search for bones in the West as it was being surveyed for the first time—literally hunting for fossils on the American frontier. Cope seemed determined to document and claim credit for as many species as possible while he had the lead, and this angered a number of other contemporary paleontologists, including Joseph Leidy and, more importantly, Othniel Charles Marsh. Marsh countered this by hiring men to infiltrate Cope's expeditions and send fossils to him instead of Cope.

  • Marsh Received Financial Support From A Wealthy Uncle on Random Details About The Bone Wars: Feud That Created And Almost Destroyed Paleontology

    (#14) Marsh Received Financial Support From A Wealthy Uncle

    Although Othniel Marsh grew up poor, he benefited from the generosity of a wealthy uncle, philanthropist George Peabody. Uncle Peabody founded Museum of Natural Science at Yale University, and it was no coincidence that Marsh received his first academic position there soon after. The financial aid of his uncle, who funded many of his studies, along with the connections he provided, helped Marsh keep up with Edward Cope, who had grown up in a privileged household and received a large inheritance of his own.

    In addition to his position at Yale, Marsh continued to get breaks as his career progressed. In the 1880s, he became the head of the U.S. Geological Survey, which allowed him to intensify his fossil-hunting endeavors.

  • In The End, Both Men Lost The Bone Wars—But Joseph Leidy And The Smithsonian Won Them on Random Details About The Bone Wars: Feud That Created And Almost Destroyed Paleontology

    (#15) In The End, Both Men Lost The Bone Wars—But Joseph Leidy And The Smithsonian Won Them

    Ultimately, neither Othniel Charles Marsh nor Edward Drinker Cope can be said to have truly won the Bone Wars. On the whole, Marsh discovered more species, but both men died destitute and with a less-than-stellar scientific reputation. Their own hubris and hunger for victory led them to reach beyond their means, and although they discovered a number of significant dinosaur species, today they’re more well-known for their feuding.

    If anyone won the Bone Wars, it’s Joseph Leidy. After Marsh and Cope's conflict caused him to bow out of dinosaur-hunting altogether, Leidy ended up branching out into other prehistoric fields, discovering more than 100 protozoans and 300 invertebrates. Another winner of the Bone Wars was the Smithsonian Institution, which acquired a seriously impressive fossil collection thanks to Marsh and Cope.

  • The Rivalry Almost Extended Beyond Death Via A Brain-Weight Challenge on Random Details About The Bone Wars: Feud That Created And Almost Destroyed Paleontology

    (#16) The Rivalry Almost Extended Beyond Death Via A Brain-Weight Challenge

    The Bone Wars should have concluded when Edward Drinker Cope died in 1897, but Cope couldn’t pass on without taking one last parting shot at his eternal rival, Othniel Charles Marsh. As one of his final requests, Cope asked that his brain be removed from his body and weighed. He invited Marsh to do the same whenever he died, and bet that his own brain would weigh more than Marsh’s—thus proving his superior intelligence once and for all. Marsh declined, and when he passed away in 1899, the Bone Wars truly came to an end.

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Bone Wars occurred in the late 19th century, two famous paleontologists competed with each other to discover more and more famous new dinosaurs. This fierce and notorious competition involves bribery, politics, violence in Native American territories, and personal assaults. They achieved great success but also damaged the reputation of paleontology with many misconducts.

The competition between them has lasted for 30 years, and they had a significant impact on paleontology, but many fossils have been destroyed and many important fossils may have disappeared from the earth. The random tool explained 16 facts about the Bone Wars here.

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