THE BONE WARS: Paleontology Ruined Lives | Detective Ridiculous

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The Bone Wars, also known as the Great Dinosaur Rush, was a period of intense and ruthlessly competitive fossil hunting and discovery during the Gilded Age of American history, marked by a heated rivalry between Edward Drinker Cope (of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia) and Othniel Charles Marsh (of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale). Each of the two paleontologists used underhanded methods to try to outdo the other in the field, resorting to bribery, theft, and the destruction of bones. Each scientist also sought to ruin his rival's reputation and cut off his funding, using attacks in scientific publications.

[@SomethingEls]

Swap the bones for relics and make both of them inquisitors, you got yourself a decent 40k story

[@sergiovergaramontemiranda2116]

Swap inquisitors for Mechanicus Magus and relics for necron/old humanity tech. And you have another good story

[@alaskarii007]

even though I've officially swung around to being a warhammer hater (who only watches this podcast because bricky shy and dk are great) I would absolutely go out of my way to read that.

[@Khornecussion]

@@alaskarii007 Fair. Hard to like some of the lore. I still feel annoyed people unjustly hated the Primaris stuff though. Now the stupid designs of primaris vehicles? Sure. Primaris marines themselves? I mean, Cawl himself was foreseen as " you are gonna make improvements and I will give you all the template stuff you need. Go nuts, just not heretical. "

[@ConWWW]

@@alaskarii007fake and not real. False and wrong. Untrue and disingenuous.

[@Mr.Vinsmokd]

I got a sneaking suspicion there already is lol

[@RevokFarthis]

"Aren't Allosaurus and Brontosaurus in the same family?" No, my guy, no they are not. One's a Long Neck, the other's a Sharptooth.

[@ObakeOnna]

Only if it's a chosen family, Littlefoot.

[@RepKyle95]

I'm a Ph.D student in paleontology, and I never thought I'd see a whole episode of my favorite podcast devoted to my field's most famous historical period! One of my favorite things to say nowadays is "make like a paleontologist and Edward Drinker COPE." I actually discovered a new species of dinosaur and the paper is coming out a week from Wednesday, so if you look for news on dinosaurs on the 24th after 11AM PST, you should see it! If y'all ever have any dinosaur-related questions or ever have need of a paleontologist for any reason, feel free to hit me up 😂

[@dragonllig790]

Please post a link to the paper I’m curious

[@portermoore2075]

If they make an Exodite army what dinosaurs would you want them to adapt...?

[@RepKyle95]

@dragonllig790 it drops on the 24th at 2PM Eastern. If you go to PLOS ONE's website at that time you'll be able to find it, along with the press release. Pretty sure even if it was out I wouldn't be able to post the link in the comments without it being auto flagged as spam lol

[@dragonllig790]

@@RepKyle95 cool

[@RepKyle95]

@@portermoore2075 I would love to see a Titanosaur of some sort, possibly a "hunting pack" of dromaeosaurs like Deinonychus or Utahraptor, cavalry in the form of ornithomimosaurs, and definitely at least one ankylosaur and one ceratopsian. I think for leaders, larger theropod mounts, like a Tyrannosaur, would be fun. But making sure all the feathered dinosaurs had feathers would be the thing that would make or break it for me.

[@wombataldebaran9686]

Reminds me of the japanese archeologist, who accidentally forgot an entire period of japanese pre-history to put into account for their papers (which turned their incredible newsworthy discovery-of-the-century into just something embarressingly incorrect), that they sneaked into the national archive and DELETED EVERY FILE MENTIONING THE EXISTENCE of said time period, leaving national archology in shambles.

[@Crust124]

I mean, points for commitment, but what the fuck-

[@kasiharsha55]

Sorry, who is this? All I can about Japanese archaeology scandals is this guy named Shinichi Fujimura but all he did was fake his 'discoveries'. I can't find whoever it is that deleted the national archive

[@JV-iv9ml]

Got a source?

[@Jormyyy]

DK accidentally saying Allosaurus and Brontosaurus were related gave me a D6 worth of psychic damage.

[@madman19931612]

Wait, but aren't they in the same branch tho? I thought the theropods and sauropods are the only ones in the "reptile hipped dinosaurs" (I don't know the English name, but I think it translates like this?) So not exactly cousins on the tree of life, but more closely related that allosaurus and most other herbivores

[@Jormyyy]

@madman19931612 it's almost like saying a komodo dragon and a pigeon are technically related because at some point they're both reptiles 😅

[@KetaceanKyle]

It gave me a D4 worth of damage, but only if I stepped on it.

[@ecyor0]

To clarify on the Apatosaurus/Brontosaurus thing - the fossil that was named Brontosaurus was later discovered to have the wrong head, since the original fossil was minus a head and they incorrectly assigned a skull from the same digsite to it later on. The Brontosaurus fossils were subsequently reclassified as Apatosaurus fossils. This was the status quo for quite a while, but in recent years new research had muddied the waters a bit and it turns out Brontosaurus might actually be its own species after all.

[@aria5614]

I remember learning that as a kid. I was all like Brontosaurus Brontosaurus and then everyone was like "actually it's Apatosaurus" which made me mad. And then I learned about Diplodacaus. And next I knew there were 50 long necked lizards and Brontosaurus was its own thing now

[@timedraven117]

*Epithat Erased flashbacks intensify* That just makes it even more freaking hilarious.

[@tedculbertson6320]

My first thought when DK brought up them both giving dinosaurs different names was "Is this where the Apatosaurus-Brontosaurus thing comes from?" But it sounds like that was separate from Marsh and Cope.

[@ObakeOnna]

@@tedculbertson6320 Marsh described both Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus. He had a habit of giving every slightly different fossil its own name to inflate his list of new dinosaur discoveries. There are several species of Apatosaurus known now and it was thought for a long while that Brontosaurus was one of them, but a detailed analysis showed it's actually different enough that it seems Marsh was actually justified in giving it its own genus, even though he partially did so for the wrong reasons.

[@AccordionTheif]

The story of these two men is told wonderfully in a graphic novel called "Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards" by Jim Ottaviani. One of the best I've ever read.

[@JadenLingerfelt]

Neat! Thanks, I’m going to check that out

[@pocenha]

Someone Pin this comment

[@thewheel6212]

What a fucking name that is.

[@jamespocelinko104]

Another silly thing related to paleontology: the spikes on the end of the stegosaurus' tail is called the thagomizer. It was a joke cartoonist Garry Larson made in his strip The Far Side until a paleontologist went "wait a minute, we don't actually have a name for that particular anatomy, that's a great idea!" and made it official.

[@judeblack4360]

Named for the late Thag Simmons, of course.

[@sarnicholas4053]

I think the scientific community is pretty fond of Ol' Gary Larson. I'm 90% sure I remember reading about an entomologist that named a new species of beetle or something after him.

[@ObakeOnna]

There was recently a thing about a new Tyrannosaurus species found in New Mexico which was named Tyrannosaurus mcraeensis. Some people complained it should have been named Tyrannosaurus mex, inspired by the Far Side cartoon about a Tyrannosaurus with that name living south of the Rio Grande.

[@TheGreatKhan1]

It is nice to see that the Paleontologists are just as crazy as the Anthropologists and Archeologists.

[@judeblack4360]

This is some Trazyn/Orikan levels of pettiness. Goes to show you that scientists aren't always as cooperative and rational as we like to believe. Oftentimes, they're worse than the average person.

[@wombataldebaran9686]

"Yes, that other paleontologist tried to outplay me in our digsite competition. So I sent some genestealers into his tent, just to annoy him."

[@ezariogerion3138]

You are exaggerating. Scientists are much better people on average.

[@judeblack4360]

@@ezariogerion3138 On average? Yes, absolutely. But when they do choose to suck, they suck _bad_. Part of the scientific method involves telling your colleagues they're full of shit, and some scientists get attached to their theories.

[@Morec0]

​@@ezariogerion3138They're people no different than anyone else. Worship a human being at your own peril.

[@scrollkeeper5272]

These guys were legit just IRL Trazyn and Orokyn

[@aidanjones4067]

BONE SAW IS READY

[@ShotGunner5609]

I GOT YOU FOR 3 MINUTES!!!

[@playtoyx]

Those are some nice fossils you got there. Did the government buy those for you?

[@TrenchCrusade]

Why is this becoming a meme after 20 years?

[@raizor639]

3 MINUTES OF PLAY TIME!!😈😈😈

[@aidanjones4067]

@@TrenchCrusade All great memes return for a victory lap

[@Zakvadr1995]

DK, here’s one possible topic that’s pretty gruesome, it’s about a Man Eating Bear and the hunt for it in northern Japan: The Sankebetsu Brown Bear incident. Another pitch is the Battle for Ape Canyon! Cowboys vs Bigfoot!

[@rynemcgriffin1752]

Honestly an episode where they explore weird and forgotten American cryptids would be interesting. Give me that in-depth Sqonk lore.

[@arandomkobold8403]

​@@rynemcgriffin1752 That sounds like an obscure type of squig

[@rynemcgriffin1752]

@@arandomkobold8403 It literally looks like a Walmart-brand Squig

[@arandomkobold8403]

@@rynemcgriffin1752 oh yeah you're right

[@FuuPhoenix]

If we’re talking about pettiness worthy of pertuabo, I hope you cover Aleister Crowley and his ‘magical battle’ on Olympia drive

[@dolando5837]

With detective ridiculous winding down I do hope they keep the opening tone, I love that little jingle.

[@ATRStormUnit]

Omg, 25:00 that was from the dinosaur magazine I read as a child. It had comics about Paleontologigists as well and a series of them were the Bone wars.

[@guybrushthreepwood362]

This pettiness is like an extended scene from the infinite and the divine where marsh and cope are fighting over dead exodites

[@BabyGodzilla-lb5vw]

Hearing him call Apatosaurus, Appt-asaurus physically hurts my soul. Also yes, Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus did have a conflict between them that ended with the Brontosaurus fossils found being put under Apatosaurus, and the name being give to another sauropod much later on in the 2010's

[@ObakeOnna]

You can't give a name assigned to one fossil to a completely different unrelated fossil. Brontosaurus still has the same holotype (=fossil the description of the genus was originally based on) that Marsh originally described in 1879, we just know a lot more about it now. A close look at the bones showed it's different enough from Apatosaurus to be its own thing.

[@BabyGodzilla-lb5vw]

@@ObakeOnna crap your right, thank for fact checking me man.

[@DISTurbedwaffle918]

As someone who loves dinosaurs and paleontology, getting to see the Bone Wars on here is amazing.

[@the36lessons11]

Is that the war where our skeletons realize they are trapped inside us and fight their way out?

[@alexvaraderey]

Like when the vampires summon the Blood God at the end of Blade?

[@SamTM00]

Good work as usual D.K but you unfortunately left out the part where Marsh once said "Begun, the Bone Wars has"

[@Pragabond]

"I'm gonna bone, I'm bonin" and then he boned all over the place

[@MatthewCayson-eh6ne]

The fact that the Civil War was the second biggest grudge match at the time is hilarious to me.

[@fletcherbydalek4284]

I love how broad the topics are for detective ridiculous, another certified banger!

[@Adeptus_Miniatures]

D.K. This was fantastic! I was riveted they entire time! Fascinating as always! Thank you Shy for editing and making the vids extra funny! Thanks Brick for being a captive audience! This was great!

[@chrisbaldwin1177]

If you want another story similar to that do research on what killed the dinosaurs and you'll be shocked the type of shenanigans that went on during the scientific publishing and between scientists

[@tetravenixyetiblazer4005]

Publication of any breakthrough type scientific journal is absolutely cut throat.

[@RepKyle95]

I was there when it happened. It's honestly worse than you think, and the supposed "guilty" party is also not who you think it is based on the press.

[@michaeldavis8250]

​@RepKyle95 how do you mean?

[@RepKyle95]

@@michaeldavis8250 Robert isn't the guilty party as people would have you believe. I'll just say that much because the whole story is too complicated to get into words.

[@latayantheazran]

I was painting Iron Warriors while listening to this, and goddamn did they remind me of Perturabo from the start lol Also, plz tell bricky he doesnt need no fancy metagear to watch/listen to stuff while doing chores or painting minis, i just had my laptop on the bed while i painted on the desk, safely away from any paint accidents.

[@filippovezzoni386]

damn these two almost single handedly found my entire Seraphon army

[@Zakvadr1995]

DK, here’s one possible topic that’s pretty gruesome, it’s about a Man Eating Bear and the hunt for it in northern Japan: The Sankebetsu Brown Bear incident. I recommend Bob Gymlan’s channel about it, really good art Another pitch is the Battle for Ape Canyon! Cowboys vs Bigfoot!

[@ArchArturo]

Ahhh, the Infinite & the Divine: Paleontology Edition.

[@HealedFiend]

As a paleontologist myself, I always liked this very silly story. Glad you decided to do an episode on it.

[@QESTize]

DK being a precious little man when he says that Palaeontology is a stable and sorted science.........tell that to Spinosauridae

[@justinkunz8845]

I just want DK to know. This is hand down the most entertaining video this channel has ever put out. The comedy The craziness The entertainment The PASSION The fact that this actually happened. And how excited DK seemed All of it made me laugh and giggle. Thank you for making his video

[@Man_Emperor_of_Mankind]

It's like the real world equivalent of a certain pair of Necron buddies

[@InsolentCrow]

These two drank nothing but Haterade for decades.

[@sebastianls412]

All academic rivalries are like this. It’s all bitter bitter loathing of the other. Granted, these two are extreme, but by god is academic beef my favourite kind of beef.

[@0FoX0]

You guys have to cover the tale of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571. The "Miracle/tragedy of los Andes" a true tale of survival under allá odds. I'd LOVE to hear DK telling the sorry

[@barrybend7189]

The inspiration for the Galar fossil pokemon.

[@Kt4nk]

I’m a new fan that’s been binging Warhammer content for the last few months. Wanted to mix things up so I tried an episode of Detective Ridiculous. Big win, love this mixup of irl stories and DK driving the episodes.

[@shieldharvey-migwans407]

Starting to think that Perty might've genuinely enjoyed Paleontology as a hobby. If i'm not mistaken his ability to look at things and just "understand" their functionality only applied to machinery? Also, everyone of these detective episodes that come out it just reminds me that people are in fact just a bunch of monkeys and i love it.

[@judeblack4360]

Since Perturabo's primarch curse is the ability to see the flaws in everything (hence why he constantly sees the Eye of Terror, because it's a massive defect in the fabric of reality), I can imagine him putting together a dinosaur skeleton and then brutally criticizing the inefficiencies in its biology. "Today, my sons, I will give you a 4-hour lecture on why the sloth is a terrible animal that we should all shame evolution for creating."

[@clayasimpson]

If you're interested in a story that is placed in this setting. Michael Crichton's "Dragon Teeth" is a historical fiction that takes the point of view of one of Marsh's students that he brings out on a dig in the Midwest United States. While a little on the fantastical side it is a very compelling read.

[@YouCaughtCzars]

I scrolled down to see if someone posted this. Absolutely a great story and I was very surprised to hear that this Detective Ridiculous was covered in a story I read for the first time early last year.

[@clayasimpson]

Wouldn't make for a bad book club if they ever want to take a month off from 40k books

[@seancain2216]

YES! This is going to be so ridiculous!!!! I love it!

[@joshuatungate8130]

I studied invertebrate paleontology for my MS and I absolutely love telling this mad hat story to people. I can absolutely tell you no one is crazier than a paleontologist/biologist with a hypothesis (source: I was/am one)

[@taurock96]

55:01 "Imagine how much it would've done for palontology if they found a way to cooperate" Not even that, just imagine how much paleontology would've advanced if they just competed WITHOUT blowing up their findings lmao

[@worthlesstrash9662]

The adventures of Cope and Seethe. The Infinite and the Divine, Earth edition.

[@znalniaskas]

"So now we're chill?" As long as nobody starts talking about Spinosaurus, yeah...

[@sheldorf11]

Didn't this story make its way as a meme last month? Or am I going insane

[@trampoline11x]

yes

[@joshua41175]

What was the meme?

[@krankarvolund7771]

In names that are still valid today, Marsh has nineteen genera (the classification above the species, most of the dinosaurs you know are genera, the species name is rarely given for dinosaurs except for Tyranosaurus rex, Tyranosaurus is the genus name, rex is the species) and several dinosaur groups like Theropodes, Ceratopsians, Ornitscihians, etc... Cope has three valid genera today. But he published a record of 1400 scientific papers XD

[@mariusmitre492]

Not what I expected, but very interesting and fun.

[@CamelotGaming]

You know, it really doesn't help that there ARE dinosaurs with tails that long

[@ameen9aluock]

What a great day to have another one

[@misterglo1394]

ONE TWO THREE FOUR I DECLARE A BONE WAR

[@schaedli177]

oh lord am i late. this went under in all the busyness of this week that i had but lets go we're talking about THE BONE ZO- *"reads title again"* THE BONE WARS!

[@davidjb20010]

Would love to see you guys do one on pale crawlers. The history and cryptids are really fun to listen to.

[@candymanva9629]

This is now my favorite episode

[@mossy-pebble-va5380]

The level of hype i felt seeing this pop up in my feed could have cracked planets. instant click

[@Fox01313]

Fun episode! I know from one of the tabletop RPG groups I was with for the Call of Cthulhu RPG where a historian in the group found a lot of the really bizarre names people had n the Pennsylvania Dutch area of the US around the same time as the bone wars.

[@korstmahler]

Wow I was given a saved-up series of booklets about paleontology when I was five and seeing those comics again was an experience.

[@HunterSentinel]

41:03 no amount of discovery could nullify all the destruction and irreplaceable fossils lost because these two decided it was better to obliterate them than let the other discover something they couldn’t have.

[@alexanderthegreat6682]

Yeah, paleontologists have a very love/hate relationship with this period of history. We love how much they discovered but hated them as scientists and for the damage they did

[@TealWolf26]

This is the episode I didn't know I needed. ❤ from an amateur paleo.

[@johnfraire6931]

20:40 This is the moment Cope became Seethe

[@ethanbailey5636]

Oh hell yeah! The Bone Wars were wild.

[@commanderiosifstalin4938]

And childish.

[@ironbomb6753]

That was hilarious! Truth is stranger than fiction. Side note: I love that you guts make a few 40k references in this video. 😂❤👍

[@Transmissional]

Very interesting topic. I enjoy learning how figures in history both large and small. Provides some context and a little bit of retrospectiveness. Considering we could just through our lives here in 2024 not really ever considering the past and everything that leads up to the now.

[@thewolfpack7718]

Tonight on AdeptusRidiculous! Bone daddy seethes over cope.

[@garrettvinson3376]

Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus were very similar, and eventually Brontosaurus was ruled to be another Apatosaurus specimen But then a few years ago, a big study of all the saurapod specimens was scanned and sorted into species by AI, and ruled that Brontosaurus was actually it's own species, so it's now back.

[@harryrogers9372]

Aboubslotly loved this episode, me being a nerd on dinosaurs and other prehistoric life, found this a interesting story to listen to, especially being from the UK the birth place of palaeontology

[@עומרשרייבר-ל4ר]

Oh the bone wars! This will be good.

[@stag2551]

"Drinker-Cope" Me too bud

[@gabrielchin4161]

Was not expecting Pacific Rim to be described as a guilty pleasure. Pacific Rim Uprising maybe.

[@petulantpeterturbo]

Nerds today like vidyagame and anime. Nerds in the 1800s were out there literally fighting the pettiest cold war known to man to see who could catalogue bones gooder.

[@mindwarp42]

And then you combine the two to get the fossil Pokemon in Pokemon Sword and Shield... 😂

[@SkeletalCommissar]

People who can't read cursive cannot read old documents, it's a bad idea to forget

[@sarahmaxima]

I mean for real old documents cursive does nothing, that falls under the field of paleography. Documents between 700 and 1700 don't really use cursive afaik. so it would only be for a short time and for the people who need to read those documents learning cursive is not that hard. its really not that relevant for 95% of society at the moment.

[@TanukiTracks]

Don't forget how to read it, yes I agree. I certainly hope we don't start actually using it again though.

[@kiddo6393]

I really enjoy DK's boomerisms, really works with his charm and narrative style

[@samfish2550]

Omg we were just talking about this randomly yesterday what timing.

[@matheuscerqueira7952]

Read "Dragon teeth" from Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park), this rivalry features as a big part of the plot

[@twilightgryphon]

"The Meta Quest is too expensive" says the man who literally bought an Astraeus tank model while recording an episode of AdRic 🤣

[@Irondrone4]

30:15 Hey, now, Pacific Rim isn’t a guilty pleasure movie. That movie is objectively awesome.

[@therudecanadian8068]

Did you know that Edward actually discovered a brand new element? Its called Copeium.

[@ArcaneMaiden]

...is it just me, or is this _the best episode of __-Defective-__ Detective Ridiculous?!_ 😮 DK slayed this! 👏

[@alexanderthegreat6682]

As someone studying paleontology, I can't help but notice some errors and minor misunderstandings, but as a production this is definitely top tier

[@87MookTV]

I feel that his peers thought his hand writing wasn't to his background would suggest.

[@coralynnremning9083]

Its the real worlds version of Trazyn and Orican.

[@gabrielchin4161]

The only Gentleman Naturalist I know of is Lord Blackwood from SCP and, apparently Teddy Roosevelt since he appears in one of Lord Blackwood's tales and is referred to as such.

[@ObakeOnna]

There is a famous lost fossil from the Bone Wars era named Amphicoelias fragillimus by Cope. It was just one incomplete vertebra from a sauropod dinosaur, but it was immense. For the longest time it was thought it could represent the largest known land animal of all time, but nobody could check Cope's measurements of it, because the actual fossil was lost in transit! All we have is the drawing Cope made of the bone at the dig site before it was shipped out. Nobody knows what happened to it. It could be that it was so fragile that it simply crumbled to dust on the way because, but one theory is that Marsh's goons destroyed it to rob him of the glory of discovering something that spectacular. As for Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus, which have long been assumed to be the same dinosaur that Marsh described as two separate ones to inflate his list of new dinosaur discoveries, they may in fact be separate genera. That means the name Brontosaurus is back in use for a single species of dinosaur which is slightly smaller than the bigger burlier Apatosaurus.

[@sillylung]

I get excited for the newest episode of Dic Ric

[@aria5614]

I agree with Bricky. If those two had worked together, even if they hadn't discovered as many fossils, none of the fossils would have been BLOWN UP.

[@Νε-α]

AdRic "Jokes about Rogal Dorn", also AdRic "I can't read cursive".

[@rulosingmymind7635]

Ya'll need to do one on the Lake City Quiet Pills incident...

[@Florkl]

Dude’s handwriting is better than 99% of people I’ve seen.

[@therandm1-621]

So Michael Crichton, the guy who wrote the Jurassic Park books, wrote a book called Dragon Teeth which is based on this rivalry. It’s pretty good

[@orraklbenedict1832]

Emperor Norton. I dare Y'all.

[@15DEAN1995]

I always find it funny that better handwriting is harder to read than bad handwriting

[@dfwai7589]

Hmmmm their "friendship" was so deep that they would name fossils after each other eh?

[@DrErikNefarious]

As a member of the Paleontology community, yes, this is all true.

[@mattkent4397]

So I don’t know if anyone check these out but a good episode for later detective ridiculous could be the story the movie Pain and Gain is based off of. Basically three body builders decide to extort and kidnap a millionaire and end up screwing up tremendously. They were called the SunGym Gang, and by the Emperor its right up your guys alley for the show.

[@bigmoe9856]

2:27 Incredible, most guys don't make it past a minute

[@krankarvolund7771]

"Marsh thought birds were descendants of dinosaurs" Well, it's been thirty or so years that we know taht birds are dinosaurs. That chicken I'm eating for dinner? yeah, it's a dinosaur ^^

[@alexanderthegreat6682]

Dino nuggets are actually made from dinosaurs. Usually.

[@nathanadams3432]

Yo the picture of the B-52 is from my old squadron at Barksdale AFB!!! Good chance I worked on it

[@rhysjones8105]

Sure they uncovered all of those fossils, however the fossils they destroyed as well as the ones they uncovered would still be there to be discovered later by somebody else.

[@joeford5181]

The Battle of The two Perturabos

[@sailornibiru626]

DK I know what a dragon looks like, I don't have to imagine it

[@Maxisamo1]

It kinda makes sense how this rivalry starts Not only did Marsh steal an opportunity away from Cope, but now he's publically embarrassed him Even if Marsh was in the right, it's a whole combo of slights against Cope, so it all blends together