Sidedoor: The Dinosaur War
The new “Deep Time” exhibition may demonstrate that the lives of dinosaurs were “nasty, brutish and short.” Apparently, paleontology can get pretty nasty, too.
Behind the fossilized teeth, bones, and claws displayed in the National Museum of Natural History’s new Fossil Hall is the story of two men and a nasty feud. During the paleontology boom of the late 1800s, scientists O.C. Marsh and Edward Cope went from good friends who named species after each other, to the bitterest of enemies who eventually ruined each other’s lives and careers. Come for the dinos, stay for the grudges.
Posted: 12 June 2019