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Episode 211 – Edward Drinker Cope

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He’s one of the most famous names in early American paleontology, and often not for good reasons. This episode, we discuss the deeds and disasters of Edward Drinker Cope.

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The Man, the Mess, the Legend

Edward Drinker Cope (1840-1897) is one of the most prominent names in early American paleontology, as famous for his immense contributions to vertebrate paleontology as he is infamous for his unethical and irresponsible personal and scientific conduct.

Cope was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and he spent much of his young life visiting the Academy of Natural Sciences and drawing pictures of animals that caught his interest. As he got older, he began studying anatomy and zoology, and in his 20s he began publishing scientific papers, first on modern herpetology and later on a broad range of living and fossil animals. Cope would go on to become extremely prolific in this regard, publishing some 1,400 papers over the course of his life.

Edward Drinker Cope, circa 1895. By Frederick Gutekunst.

In the late 1800s, Cope spent a lot of time traveling across the American West and publishing papers about fossils of dinosaurs, ancient mammals, and more. During this time, he became embroiled in the notorious Bone Wars with his long-time rival Othniel Charles Marsh. He also became closely associated with other influential figures such as Charles R. Knight and Henry Fairfield Osborn.

Despite his extensive scientific work, Cope’s reputation is not great. He was frequently careless and unethical in his work, he commonly tried to use science to support his own racist, misogynistic, and eugenicist views, and he was by many accounts just not a very nice person.

One of Cope’s most famous mistakes was illustrating Elasmosaurus with its head at the end of its tail rather than its neck, as seen here. By Cope, 1869.
An illustration of several ancient reptiles, now very outdated, including Dryptosaurus, Mosasaurus, Hadrosaurus, Thoracosaurus, and Elasmosaurus (with its head on the wrong end). By Cope, 1869.

By the end of his life, Cope had nearly bankrupted himself and had developed a poor relationship with many of the important scientific figures and institutions of his time. His legacy is a complicated one. Many of his discoveries remain important to modern science, and many of the most informative ancient species were named by him, while at the same time he is most well-known for his substantial errors, misguided views, and sour relationships.

A few famous fossil animals originally named by Cope.
Top left: Dimetrodon. Image by H. Zell, CC BY-SA 3.0
Top right: Camarasaurus. Image by James St. John, CC BY 2.0
Bottom left: Coelophysis. Image by Thomas Quine, CC BY 2.0
Bottom right: Lystrosaurus. Image by Rama, CC BY-SA 2.0

Learn More

The bone sharp: the life of Edward Drinker Cope by Jane P Davidson (1997)
The great dinosaur hunters and their discoveries by Edwin Colbert (1984)
The bone hunters by Url Lanham (1973)
The origin of the fittest: essays on evolution by Edward D Cope (1887)

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