Bone Wars Built Dinosaur Fame

In the late 1800s, American paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh became bitter rivals in what later became known as the Bone Wars. As they raced to uncover dinosaurs in the American West, they bribed workers, stole information, tried to ruin each other’s careers, and sometimes destroyed fossils to keep the other man from getting them. The feud burned through their money and wrecked both of them financially by the end. But for all the chaos, their rivalry helped uncover more than 140 dinosaur species and pushed dinosaur hunting into the public spotlight.

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