Eye - 15 August 2025

Eye unearths a Friend's role in the 'bone wars' at the dawn of palaeontology

by Elinor Smallman 15th August 2025

A bone to pick

With the release of another Jurassic Park movie, US-based Thee Quaker Project shared this striking poster on social media, adding: ‘Edward Drinker Cope (1840-1897) was an American Quaker paleontologist known for his participation in the “Bone Wars”, the name given to a personal feud between Cope and fellow paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh. The two rivals spent most of their fortunes on an intense fossil-finding competition, constantly trying to discredit and one-up each other. The origin of the bad blood? Marsh pointed out that Cope had put the head on the wrong end of a plesiosaur fossil.’