A prehistoric rivalry. I'm Jason Horton.

I'm Rebecca Lieb.

And this is Ghost Town.

This is an episode unlike any other I would say.

It really is indicative of a specific type of person

in a specific place and time doing very specific things.

We talk obviously about a lot of different people

and different very specific scenarios to them,

but the story would have never happened without a lot

of separate things aligning. Rich guy things.

Today we're going back to the Gilded Age to follow two

incredibly intense frenemies who would be at each other's

throats trying to outcompete each other at,

wait for it, discovering dinosaur remains.

And you know it's rivalry if they give it a name

and the science community of that time certainly did.

This is the story of paleontologists Edward Drinker-Cope

and Othneal Charles March and their Bone Wars,

a period of obsessive and intense competitive fossil hunting

that would lay the pretty toxic foundation

for modern paleontology.

Young paleontologists Edward Drinker-Cope

...