NONFICTION
The Dinosaur War
It’s easy to get it wrong when you’re putting
together a dinosaur. That’s what happened to
Edward Cope. He and Othniel Marsh were
fossil hunters and friends. Cope was proud
of his latest dinosaur skeleton. He’d put it
together himself. But Marsh just laughed at
him. Cope had put the dinosaur’s head on the
tip of its tail!
Cope couldn’t stand to be laughed at. He
broke off his friendship with Marsh. From
that day on, the two men hated each other.
Read What’s There
1 Why did Othniel Marsh and Edward
Cope hate each other?
summarize the dinosaur war
Sundance Comprehension Strategies Kit © Sundance Publishing
Dinosaur Graveyard
Over millions of years, dirt and sediment
sometimes washes away. When this happens,
the fossils are exposed. But sometimes, they
remain buried until someone digs them up.
Como Bluff, Wyoming, can be a tough place.
Summers are hot. Winters are freezing. But
during the Jurassic period, when dinosaurs
lived there, the weather was always warm. So
many dinosaurs lived and died in Como Bluff.
Some Dinosaurs at Como Bluff
How did the dinosaurs become fossils? When
they died, their bones were covered by fine
soil, or sediment. Over time, the sediment
hardened and became rock. Meanwhile,
minerals in the sediment entered the bones.
The minerals preserved the bones and made
them stronger.
Allosaurus
SUMMARIZE
16 feet
tall
70 feet
long
20 feet
tall
90 feet
long
IQ
High IQ
Low IQ
High IQ
Low IQ
Meat
Plants
Meat
Plants
T hink About It
2 A heading can help you decide what the
main idea of a section is.
3 Look at the chart above. Why might the
meat-eating dinosaurs have had a higher
IQ than the plant-eating dinosaurs?
What is the main idea of “Dinosaur
Graveyard”?
summarize the dinosaur war
Diplodocus
Size
Diet
Practice the Strategy
Apatosaurus Ceratosaurus
Sundance Comprehension Strategies Kit © Sundance Publishing
A Great Discovery
The Battle over Bones
In 1872, a railway was being built through
Como Bluff. Two workers cut through some
bones that were very, very big. The workers
had heard of Othniel Marsh. He was a famous
fossil hunter. The workers wrote to Marsh.
They told him about their find. Marsh sent a
team right away to start digging.
For about a year, Marsh had Como Bluff to
himself. During that time, his team dug up
60,000 pounds of dinosaur bones. But Cope
soon heard of the rich find and sent a team to
dig, too.
Each man tried to find the most and the
biggest fossils. They had their teams of
workers spy on each other. They even accused
each other of bribing and stealing workers.
Once, Cope was certain that Marsh had stolen
fossils from his site. So he stole a whole train
full of fossils that Marsh had found.
Read Between the Lines
4 Why did Cope and Marsh each try to find
the most and the biggest fossils?
O th ni el M ar sh
Ed w a rd C o p e
summarize the dinosaur war
Sundance Comprehension Strategies Kit © Sundance Publishing
Marsh and Cope’s dinosaur
skeletons are now in museums.
Jurassic Jackpot
Como Bluff is a fossil hunter’s treasure
chest. Many dinosaurs and hundreds of early
mammals have been found in this part of
Wyoming. But not all of the fossils at Como
Bluff have been dug out yet. New bones
keep poking out!
The feud became so heated that workers on
both teams kept their guns close by. When a
team finished at a site, they smashed all the
bones that were left. They did this to stop the
Practice the Strategy
SUMMARIZE
5 When you summarize an article, you look
for the most important information: the main
ideas and supporting details. Then you
organize the information and tell it in your
own words.
other team from looking at them.
Marsh and Cope fought a bitter war over a
hill of bones. But they added a lot to the study
of fossils. Before they began work, there were
only nine named species of dinosaurs in North
America. By the time the two men died, there
were over 150 named species. Most of these
were found by Cope and Marsh.
summarize the dinosaur war
Use the main idea and a detail from each section
to write a brief summary of The Dinosaur War.
Sundance Comprehension Strategies Kit © Sundance Publishing