What Is Othniel Charles Marsh And Edward Drinker Cope?

Othniel Charles Marsh
Othniel Charles Marsh was an 18th century paleontologist who named a majority of the the dinosaurs known today. Othniel Charles Marsh was born on October 29, 1831 in the city of Lockport, New York. He did not have a strong connection with family life because of the death of his mother when he was almost 3 years old. Othniel Charles Marsh had a love for nature and outdoors in his early ages. He had a friend named Colonel Ezekiel who happened to be a geologist at the time. Because of their same interest in nature and natural history, this led to a close friendship between the two. They would collect specimens and Ezekiel would teach Marsh about local minerals and other specimens that were found near his home.
When Othniel
Edward Drinker Cope was the other profound paleontologist at the time. Edward Drinker Cope was born on July 28, 1840 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Like Othniel Charles Marsh who had a wealthy relative, Edward Drinker Cope’s father (as described by Embryo.asu.edu) was a wealthy merchant who owned the largest foreign trade shipping business in the early 1800s, in the United States. Edward Drinker Cope was also intrigued by natural history from an early age like Othniel Charles Marsh. Edward Drinker Cope attended a day school where he could access the museum at the Academy of Natural Selection. Edward Drinker Cope was able to take classes at the museum from 1853 until 1856. Edward Drinker Cope then went on to work under Joseph Leidy, who was a paleontologist and anatomist at the University of
Othniel Charles Marsh then pointed out that Cope had but the skull of the dinosaur or the wrong end of its body, humiliated and embarrassed Cope. The rivalry between the two pushed each other to work harder on their research. There were many times where the two men were competing to describe the most new dinosaurs fossils. Sadly, this led to much rushing of the scientist and meant that there were times when the men would mix up different bones and even use a dinosaurs name one than once. The rivalry between the two men was still extremely positive on the study of paleontology. Before Cope and Marsh had started to research the fossils there were only eighteen dinosaurs known. Between Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh they had named more than 130 new