Naming Confusion

During their mad rush to discover as many species as possible, Cope and Marsh ended up naming many new prehistoric animals based on very fragmentary evidence. Often, they would end up giving the same animal multiple names. One of the most famous examples of this kind of confusion wasBlack and white image of Edward Drinker Cope sitting at a desk. the Apatosaurus/Brontosaurus debacle.

The phenomenon of two scientists accidentally naming the same organism isn't that uncommon. This is especially true in paleontology, where the vast majority of the new organisms being named have never been seen alive and only parts of them have been preserved, often poorly. Two paleontologists might find different parts of a creature in different places, and only find out they were the same animal when someone else finds a more complete specimen. Marsh and Cope, however, were so desperate to outdo each other that they became reckless with their naming, announcing brand new species as often as they could from the most fragmentary evidence. Paleontologists in the last hundred years have had to untangle the naming confusion caused by Cope's and Marsh's rivalry.

Nearly all of the species Cope named from the Lucas quarries were later determined to just be synonyms for previously named animals. The first name given to an organism generally has priority over any other names given to it, making these species names of Cope's invalid. 

The following is a list of dinosaurs from the Cope-Lucas Quarries whose names are no longer considered valid to scientists today, either because they refer to animals who already had valid names, or because the evidence for them is so fragmentary that there isn't enough information to justify naming a new species.

  • "Caulodon diversidens"
  • "Caulodon leptoganus"
  • "Camarasaurus leptodirus"
  • "Epanterias amplexus"
  • "Laelaps trihedrodon"
  • "Brachyrophus altarkansanus"
  • "Symphryophys musculosus"
  • "Hypsirhophus discurus"
  • "Hypsirhophus seeleyanus"
  • "Tichosteus lucasanus"
  • "Tichosteus aquifacies"
  • "Compsemys plicatulus" and "Amphicotylus lucasii," both non-dinosaurs, were later reorganized into different genera. Cope is still credited with naming both species.

Amphicoelias is an interesting case. Cope named three species of Amphicoelias: Amphicoelias altus, A. latus, and A. fragillimus. Almost all researchers after Cope have considered A. altus and A. latus to be the same species, but only some consider A. fragillimus to be another synonym of A. altus. Any questions about A. fragillimus, quite possibly the largest dinosaur ever found, are complicated by the fact that the only specimen of it is missing.

The only species Cope named from the Lucas quarries that escapes this list completely is Camarasaurus supremus. In fact, Camarasaurus is one of only three dinosaur genera that Cope named that are still completely used out of the twenty-six dinosaur genera Cope published during his career.