Do you love witnessing a good feud? Yeah, me too. It's amazing how some people will allow a slight, real or perceived, to turn into a rivalry that will just completely consume them, how they can become so singularly focused on wanting to show someone else up or bring someone else down or both, and how in the process they will needlessly inflict a preposterous

amount of damage on themselves. The Bone Wars, also known as the Great Dinosaur Rush, was a

period of intensely competitive fossil hunting in the late 19th century that led to the downfall

of the era's two best fossil hunters. The bone wars were ignited by the rivalry between

noted U.S. paleontologists, Edward Drinker Cope of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia,

and Othneill Charles Marsh of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale. Each man would resort to

bribery, theft, and even the destruction of priceless

fossils in order to ruin the other man's reputation and cut off his funding. The pair went out of

their way to accuse the other of wrongdoing, and they attempted to destroy each other's

reputations amongst the scientific community through a battle of the press. There were times when their feud

threatened to completely destroy their careers and financing their ventures did bring them both

to financial ruin. How did Marsh and Cope go from being friends, naming species after one another,

to mortal enemies, determined to ruin the other's life at almost any cost.

This week, we will discuss the history of paleontology and dinosaur research,

how the rivalry between Cope and Marsh came to be, and the events of the Bone Wars

on the scientific, dinosaur-centric historical edition of TimeSuck.

This is Michael McDonald, and you're listening to TimeSuck.

You're listening to TimeSuck.

Well, happy Monday, and welcome or welcome back to the cult of the curious.

I'm Dan Cummins, the suckmaster, guy who loves to say,

La Luz de la Mundo!

Amateur historian, professional smart ass, and you are listening to TimeSuck.

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