The Bone Wars: The Harshest Rivalry You've Never Heard Of

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... Wait, scratch that, it was only about 150 years ago in the fossil beds of Wyoming. Sorry, I was thinking of something else that ends in 'Wars'.

Much like a certain space-themed prequel series, the Bone Wars was a tale of two friends turned bitter enemies. Their names were Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope.

Marsh and Cope became friends while in Berlin in 1864. As is so often the case, however, their relationship was ruined by their butting personalities and differing beliefs.

Their rivalry began when Marsh mocked Cope for the shoddy reconstruction he'd made for his discovered plesiosaur, Elasmosaurus. Cope had placed its skull at the wrong end of the creature's spine--giving it a long tail instead of a long neck. Cope was humiliated.

The Bone Wars began in the 1870s. Both Marsh and Cope made it their solitary mission to out-do the other while their digs commenced in the American West. Both unearthed dozens of new species but, in their rush to ruin the other, Marsh and Cope would assign differing names to the same species and announce them as separate animals regardless that their samples were mere fragments of bones.

In 1877, Marsh received word that a treasure trove of fossils had been discovered in Como Bluff, Wyoming and that Cope's team had been seen digging.

In the 15 years that the two competed in Como Bluffs, both men resorted to secrecy and vandalism to make their discoveries. Cope hired "dinosaur rustlers" to steal fossils out from under Marsh and vice versa. Their excavators even resorted to heaving rocks at each other!

Their attacks culminated in both Marsh and Cope ordering the destruction of fossils and dig sites to keep future discoveries out of the hands of the other.

Marsh and Cope not only ruined each other professionally but also ruined each other's

Credit to Orbis Publishing

credibility. The two delighted in publicizing each other's mistakes--the most famous of which being Marsh's hasty discovery of Brontosaurus (a subject worthy of its own blog post *wink wink*)

Bitter to the very end, Cope even arranged for his brain to be donated to science and challenged Marsh to do the same in the hopes that doctors could one day prove that his brain was bigger than Marsh's.

In the end, the two had discovered 136 total species with Marsh as the victor with 80 discoveries. Their excavations led to the discoveries of such greats as Triceratops, Allosaurus, and Stegasaurus--dinosaurs that captured the imaginations of children and adults for nearly two centuries.

However, the Bone Wars left both men poor and ill-liked. They'd ruined each other's reputations but their rivalry had stained the public's view of paleontology all together. Even worse, their destruction of old dig sites may have forever buried undiscovered fossils.

The rivalry of O.C. Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope serves as a cautionary tale for what becomes of scientists who covet fame over facts.

Top left credit to: Sam Washburn Bottom right credit to: Dinosaurs! series owned by Orbis Publishing

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