Two brilliant, wealthy scientists once hired armies of frontier workers to spy on each other, throw stones across ravines, and dynamite priceless fossils into dust, all to spite a rival. This deep dive into the Bone Wars follows Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh as they essentially invent modern paleontology while trying to destroy each other, dying penniless and humiliated in the process.

From a broken friendship in New Jersey marl pits to telegram-fueled naming races and the brutal sabotage at Como Bluff, we examine how ego eclipsed the scientific mandate. The result was 142 new dinosaur species and the public's enduring love of dinosaurs, alongside ruined reputations and lost knowledge.

• How Marsh bribed Cope's pit operators and weaponized the backward Elasmosaurus skull blunder
• The telegram wars that turned ...