Cope, Edward Drinker, 1840–97, American paleontologist and comparative anatomist, b. Philadelphia, studied at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, and at the Smithsonian Institution. His large collection of fossil mammals is now at the American Museum of Natural History. His many published works include The Vertebrata of the Tertiary Formations of the West (1883), a report on the F. V. Hayden survey in which he served as geologist and paleontologist. Cope believed that evolution arose from an organism's inner urge to attain a higher state of being.

Bibliography

See D. R. Wallace, The Bonehunters' Revenge (1999).

Cope, Edward Drinker

(born , July 28, 1840, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.—died April 12, 1897, Philadelphia) U.S. paleontologist. He devoted 22 years to exploration and research, especially in the description of extinct fishes, reptiles, and mammals of the western U.S. He discovered about 1,000 species of extinct vertebrates and developed the evolutionary histories of the horse and of mammalian teeth. His theory of kinetogenesis, stating that the natural movements of animals aided in the alteration and development of moving parts, led him to support Lamarck's theory of evolution. He engaged in a bitter, long-running feud with O.C. Marsh. Among his 1,200 books and papers are Reptilia and Aves of North America (1869–70) and Relation of Man to Tertiary Mammalia (1875).

Cope, Edward Drinker (1840–97) zoologist, paleontologist; born in Philadelphia. Although his postsecondary education was limited to one year's study with Joseph Leidy at the University of Pennsylvania, Cope went on to found (along with Leidy and O.C. Marsh) the science of American vertebrate paleontology. On numerous western American expeditions he discovered more than 600 fossil species, mostly of cold-blooded vertebrates and extinct mammals, whose discovery significantly pushed back the age of mammals. His published descriptions laid the groundwork for the classification of North American fishes, amphibians, and reptiles. A believer in the inheritability of acquired characteristics, he became America's foremost neo-Lamarckian evolutionary theorist. The ambitious Cope struggled for primacy in his new and fertile field in a famous 25-year feud with his archrival O.C. Marsh, with whom he publicly traded vitriolic accusations of inaccuracy and unethical conduct. Cope's massive published output included more than 1,500 titles. He owned and edited American Naturalist (1878–97) and was professor at the University of Pennsylvania (1889–97).