Science Vs - The Great Dinosaur Smashup

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

More than 150 years ago, just before dino-mania struck, New York City was supposed to get a majestic dinosaur museum full of amazing models of dinos. There would have been nothing like it in the world. Until a bunch of thugs showed up with sledgehammers and smashed every bit of the models to smithereens — and buried it all in Central Park. Today we’re finding out what happened — and WHY. We speak with doctoral researcher Vicky Coules and paleontologist Carl Mehling. SURVEY!! HELP US SCIENCE!! WE NEED YOUR HELP TO UNCOVER THE LAST MYSTERIES OF SEX https://bit.ly/ScienceVsSurvey Find our transcript here: https://bit.ly/ScienceVsTheGreatDinosaurSmashup In this episode, we cover: (00:00) ​​The amazing dino museum we didn’t get to have (03:15) What we knew about dinos in the 1800s (04:57) The famous Crystal Palace dinosaurs (06:48) The plan for the Paleozoic Museum is born (10:40) The Great Dinosaur Smashup of 1871 (12:52) Suspect No. 1: Boss Tweed (17:58) Vicky cracks the case! (26:17) One final mystery — where are the dino pieces?? This episode was produced by Blythe Terrell with help from Wendy Zukerman, R.E. Natowicz, Michelle Dang, Meryl Horn, Rose Rimler and Joel Werner. Editing by Wendy Zukerman. Fact checking by Erica Akiko Howard. Mix and sound design by Bobby Lord. Music written by Bobby Lord, Emma Munger, So Wylie, Bumi Hidaka and Peter Leonard. Thanks so much to everyone we spoke to about this episode, including Gowan Dawson, Robert Peck, Wendy Anthony and Jessica M. Lydon. Also thanks to Jack Weinstein, the Zukerman Family and Joseph Lavelle Wilson. Science Vs is a Spotify Studios Original. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us and tap the bell for episode notifications.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman. You're listening to Science Versus. Today on the show, Blythe Terrell. Yes, I am Blythe Terrell. I'm editor of the show. Wendy, we are here in the studio for a very important reason. I have a story for you. I came across this story about a year ago, actually, and I have not been able to get it out of my head. It is so weird. It is so much fun.

And it has everything, Wendy. Everything. Everything? Yes. It's got dinosaurs. Ooh. It's got nerd fights. It's got 1800s New York City politics.

Whoa. Should we get started? Yes. Yes. All right. Spanning time and space. Where do we begin? Okay, Wendy.

Imagine it is the 1870s, and we are in a room Okay, Wendy, imagine it is the 1870s, and we are in a room full of massive models of dinosaurs. These super cool life-size models. And you're walking among them. They're like, you know, they're towering over you. We've got a meat eater. We've got a plant eater. Maybe we've got, like, other prehistoric creatures, mammoth, giant armadillos,

an elasmosaurus, one of those water creatures. And these models, these gorgeous, super cool models are destined for this museum. It's the first time ever that most people will ever have seen a dinosaur. And it is going to be a complete game changer. People are going to, like, it's going to blow people's minds. Wow. Okay, but Wendy, here's why you have to imagine it. Because before this museum ever had a chance to open, something happened.

I would like to paint a little bit of a picture for you. So it's May 3rd, 1871. A group of dudes shows up. They've got sledgehammers. Okay. And these thugs bust in and just go absolutely nuts. They smash everything. Every model, every life-sized half-made dinosaur, every little tiny model of a future life-sized dinosaur to smithereens. And then, Wendy, once these thugs have smashed everything up, they take all the bits and pieces away,

cart them off, and bury them. What? Somewhere under Central Park. That is so f***ing vindictive. What? Like, why? Yes, why? Yes, why? No, this is a wild story.

And actually, like, this is a story that has, like, mesmerized people for 150 years. Like, a paper, Wendy, like, just came out on this last year. Sort of, like, turning up new stuff in this story. Oh, wow. About, like, what might have happened and why and, like, what maniac was behind this. So that is what we're going to get into today. Right. We're going to dig into this dino museum mystery

in this episode that I am calling The Great Dinosaur Smash-Up of 1871. We are going to get into it. Shall we get into it after the break? Yes. Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert, as trains can pass at any time on the tracks.

Remember to follow all traffic signals. Be careful along our tracks and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. It's season three of The Joy of Why, and I still have a lot of questions. Like, what is this thing we call time? Why does altruism exist? And where is Jan 11? I'm here, astrophysicist and co-host, ready for anything.

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New episodes drop every other Thursday, starting February 1st. All right, welcome back. Today on the show, the great dino smash-up of 1871. Blas, we were supposed to have some awesome dinosaur museum. Instead, we have dust. What happened? What happened? Yes.

So New York City, let's head there. New York City, 1850s, 1860s. Stuff is going down. The city is growing. And they have just built a fancy new park called Central Park. Now, I want to mention that one of the things they did to make this park is kick people off the land. So hundreds of black New Yorkers were displaced, in addition to other New Yorkers as well, to make the park.

But New York has this park, and they are trying to figure out what to put in it. And at this time, Wendy, we are, like, just starting to creep up toward dinosaur mania. Aha. So, again, what do we know about dinosaurs in the 1860s? Today, I mean, listen, we've got tons of dinosaurs, tons of museums. You know, your average four-year-old can barely wipe their own butt, but they can tell you what a triceratops is. Right, yes. I mean, it's like dinosaurs are like part of our culture. Yes.

In a way that they totally were not in this period of time. Right. Yet. So, what's going on is like over in Europe, they've dug up a few big fossils. They've got an iguanodon, they've got a megalosaurus, some stuff like that. Uh-huh. Right. And in the U.S., actually, we've got our first, like, homegrown U.S. dug-up dinosaurs,

dug up in New Jersey, actually. Okay. And so scientists are kind of just starting to piece these together to get a picture of, like, what a dinosaur might have looked like. It's so cool to, like, think about what it would be like to be, like, doing that work. But, okay, okay, so we've got a new park. We got new dinosaurs.

So, yes, and this is where a British guy called Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins enters our story. Yeah. Wendy, do you know the phrase BFD? No. Like, oh, we can use the phrase BFD? No. Like, oh, we can use freaking, like big freaking deal is what BFD stands for. Because in this story— Big f***ing deal.

Big f***ing deal. In this story, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins is a big f***ing deal. Okay. Okay. So let me tell you a little bit about this guy. He's an artist and a sculptor in the UK and who does tons of nature drawings. He's actually done drawings for, I don't know, a little someone named Charles Darwin. Maybe you've heard of him. Okay. Okay. All right. One historian actually wrote that, quote,

Hawkins almost single-handedly ignited a popular interest in dinosaurs and other forms of prehistoric life that continues to the present day. The big thing Hawkins does is in London. He designed and built these massive concrete models of dinosaurs. Right. And actually, they still exist today, so we sent our producer, Michelle Dang, to check them out.

Oh, cool. Ooh, there he is. I'm coming up on him. Ooh, there's a lot of them. So, looking specifically at the iguanodon, um, I don't know. His hands are, his paws are,

his paws or his claws are too big. He has no neck. Wow! Because this is, because this is the 1800s, they don't know what dinosaurs look like. Right! He's got the body of a bear, but he has a very

fantastic rump. He's big. He's big. It's like a bear combined with an alligator. It looks like... It kind of looks like a Godzilla. You know, it was... It was the best they could do. The best they could do.

And this is actually when we hit a really big moment in our story. Because get this, Wendy. This guy, this artist, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, he just, like, happens to show up in New York City in 1868. Seriously? Like, just as they're trying to work out what to do with Central Park. That's like, that's like dinosaur museum kismet. The best kind of kismet.

The best kind of kismet, I would say. Right. So the people in charge of Central Park, they get wind of this, and they're like, oh, this is great. Like, we want you to build us some dinosaurs. And thus, the plan, Wendy, for the Paleozoic Museum is born. Do-do-do-do-do! Do-do! So the park organizers, the park planners who bring on Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins,

they basically roll out the red carpet for this guy. Right. They are like, we're going to pay you a bunch of money. And then they set him up in this massive building on the park property, on the park grounds, called the Arsenal. It looks like a castle. Very, very thin windows, I guess. So I went there with Carl Maling, paleontologist.

Did you notice the railing on the stairs? Oh, is it guns? Wow. That really completes the imagery. How did I miss that? So do you think Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins walked up these stairs every day to go to work? I have no doubt. I mean, there's other ways in the building,

but why would you choose a different one if that's your way in? You've got to use the gun stairs. Right. So you can imagine Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins here in this castle covered in guns. Yes. And he has got huge plans

for this New York museum. Oh, what kind of plans? There's a description of this dinosaur display from this book called Dinosaurs in the Attic. And it says Waterhouse Hawkins,

quote, planned to show the hadrosaurus being attacked by a carnivorous dinosaur, Laylaps, while two other Laylaps feasted on the corpse of yet another hadrosaur. Ooh. This description goes on to say that nearby the marine reptile Elasmosaurus would lurk in the shallow water of a pool. Moving farther along the evolutionary ladder, Hawkins had planned for two giant armadillos, mastodons, giant sloths, and a giant elk.

So he's like going all out. Yeah. He's like, you want me to build dinosaurs? I'll do you one better. Yeah. I got a whole scene of animals that didn't really coexist. Well, that's fine. Don't worry about that part.

Would you like to see a picture of what this looks like? I would love to see a picture of this vision. Okay. Here it is. Oh, wow. Even today, even today, this would, I mean, obviously these dinosaurs look ridiculous. And like this one is like.

Oh, the hadrosaurus, yes. Is that, oh, look at its legs. Wendy, he likes a thick dinosaur. We know this about him. And again, this would have been the first time most New Yorkers would have seen anything like this. Right. So to get more on all this, I called up a historian who is going to be key to our story. Okay.

Her name is Vicky Cools, and she's at the University of Bristol in the UK. Can you imagine seeing that for the first time ever? Can you imagine experiencing that? Oh, I think it would have been very exciting. I think it would have been the equivalent of somebody in the 60s and 70s going to Disneyland. It would have transported them into another world. Here is Carl on this too, our paleontologist. What do you think it would feel like to walk inside of this hall?

Panic in the best way. I mean, I've heard, I don't know how apocryphal it is, but a lot of these really, really early exhibits, like the first mastodons that were mounted, which is just a mounted skeleton, you know, women would come in and swoon and pass out, and people were throwing up, and, like, no one had ever seen anything like this before.

It was probably shocking. I'm getting very sad that we don't have this today. I want to know what went wrong. Yes. All right. So the first thing that happens is, you remember that beautiful building he was in, this arsenal that we talked about? Yes. Love it. Beautiful stairs. Yes, yes, yes remember that beautiful building he was in, this arsenal that we talked about? Yes.

Love it. Beautiful stairs. Yes, yes, yes. Right. So Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, he gets moved from that beautiful space across the park to work in this shed instead. That takes us to a day that shall live in infamy, Wendy. The great dinosaur smash-up. There was a gang of workmen with sledgehammers just went in and smashed everything up into small pieces.

It's so thoroughly pulverized that you wouldn't recognize it if you found it. This wasn't just some mindless vandalism. They were actually sent in. It is so bananas, even for the time. It's bizarre. They could have said, you know, sorry, Mr. Hawkins, or get out of here, asshole.

They could have said that. But destroying everything is bizarre and cruel. Yeah, yeah. So what happened? And why? Why? Yeah, why? Yes, that is the question.

Why? Oh, there's even, before we get into the why, there's one thing that I find particularly potentially outrageous. One report that I saw said they might have actually not just smashed up the models. It's possible they smashed up some real prehistoric fossils at the same time because there were bits of an Elasmosaurus that had been loaned to Hawkins that have never been found again. What?

Yeah. Like, here is Vicky. I mean, I don't know of anything else that compares to this in the history of museums, in the history of dinosaur discovery. And it was so final. So done. So done. We don't know if Hawkins was there at the time.

I did ask Vicky, like, God, how do you think, like, how? Just like, how do you think he would have reacted to this? I think he would have been a combination of absolutely incandescent with rage because of the injustice, absolutely incensed, and also devastated. You could argue it would have broken his heart.

Okay. Our answer's glad. Okay, we're going to get answers after the break. Whoa. Okay, welcome back today on the show, the museum that wasn't where we left off. This artist, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, was creating the most beautiful dinosaur museum the world hath ever seen.

Would have been amazing today. We could have seen it at this moment, but instead it doesn't exist and we're finding out why. Yes, we are. Let's get back to it. Okay. Why would someone do this? Okay. So that is what our historian Vicky wanted to know as well. And in a bunch of the stuff that she was seeing about this, one guy was getting blamed. His name is William Boss Tweed. You familiar? I can't say I'm familiar. All right.

Well, that's good. That's why I'm here. Okay. All right. So New York City in the mid-1800s is basically run by this group of corrupt Democrats. Okay. So nothing's changed. Ah!

But I'm cheating. Okay. All right. I'm sorry. And within this group, Boss Tweed is at the top of the heap. Okay.

Owns a bunch of land, he's a politician, he was a state senator, and he's got his mitts in everything around town. And I think it's fair to say that, generally speaking,

like, history has shown this guy to be, like, kind of a shady a shady character. He'd been accused of doing all kinds of stuff like vote rigging, you know, extortion, bribery, the greatest hits of your 1800s, mid-1800s New York politician. And here is actually how Vicky describes Boss Tweed. He was known for being a very, very big man and tall as well. So, I mean, he would have a very commanding presence. I mean, he wasn't just fat. He was huge.

And he surrounded himself by his, for want of a better word, flunkies who sort of did his bidding. And they became known as the Tweed Ring. Okay, when I think of Boss Tweed, I kind of imagine him as like a, you know, hey, here's a bag of cash. Right. You know, say hi to your mother for me. Yeah. And the tweed ring is very suspicious.

Like, if you need someone to smash up a shed full of dinosaurs, like, tweed ring is going to help you out. Yeah. Okay, Boss. Okay, we got it. We got it. We're just going to smash it to Smith Reeds. Like, is that?

Yeah. So, yeah, people were suspicious that Boss got it. We're just going to smash it to Smith Reeds. Like, exactly. So, yeah, people were suspicious that Boss Tweed was behind this dino smash-up for a few reasons. Okay, like, for one thing, before the smash-up, Tweed had put some new people in charge of the park. And these people also eventually, like, they canceled the museum. Oh. Oh. Yeah. Like, they had kind of told Waterhouse Hawkins to back off. And they were like, actually, we don't think we want this Paleozoic Museum at all.

Oh. So, suspicious, yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, as far as motive for Tweed, people have generally thrown a few of these around. There were comments at the time about, oh, how Tweed probably killed this because he couldn't figure out how to make money off of it. Oh, right, right, right, right, right. Yeah, like one of the books later written about this says,

quote, Tweed was angry because he could find no way to reap illegal profits and kickbacks from the museum's construction. Right, so petty. And also, Wendy, I'm a little offended at the idea of somebody, like, trying to make illegal money off of dinosaurs. That's what was the downfall of Jurassic Park. Oh, you're right. That's right. There's this other theory that Tweed was mad

because after the museum was canceled, he'd gotten some bad press, like some science nerds said some stuff in the New York Times about him. So the bottom line here is that, like, for decades, you know, nerds have been like, yeah, Tweed, the Tweed ring. He's the one who's got blood on his hands. They did this. Concrete dust or whatever. Yeah. Yeah.

This is the theory. But this made Vicky put on her true detective hat. Okay. Because Vicky came across this story while she's working on her PhD. She's actually studying art and how dinosaurs appear in art. Mm-hmm. So she came across this dino smash-up. Yeah.

And once she started noodling on it, like, to her, this idea, this tweet idea. Yeah. Like, things just didn't really add up. And the more I thought, this doesn't make sense, so therefore what did happen, it became one of those things that sort of bothers you, a bit like an itch you need to scratch. So, Wendy, Vicky scratched that itch. So she started looking into the theories for why Tweed might have done this, and she wasn't buying them, basically. Like, she just didn't buy that he was that mad

about this bad press over the museum. There's like one dinky article on page five of the Times. And it's like, Tweed was under fire for a lot of other stuff, you know? So she was like, it just didn't make any sense to her. But she was kind of like, well, if it wasn't Tweed, then who was it? Yeah.

So Vicky's digging into all the sources she can find. I was beginning to get some tantalizing, just little clues. It was like pulling in lots of different threads. And she goes back to about the most boring document that I can think of, which is the meeting minutes of the Central Park board. So it's like every time these, every time the people running the park get together, someone's taking notes.

Okay. What I would say, I was surprised how absolutely fascinating it was reading these minutes. I really was. I was absolutely hooked. And all my friends looked at me like I was mad. So she starts like going through these minutes.

The big breakthrough for me was, I was sitting in a cafe with a cup of coffee going through these and there was very much aha. Yes, this aha moment. So Wendy, Vicky knows that the date, she knows the date these dinosaur models got all smashed up, right? It's May 3rd, 1871.

And she finds this entry in the minutes from the day before the dinosaur smash-up. So on May the 2nd, there's an entry of the minutes of a meeting in which the board decide it's time they got rid of the temporary workshop and that the old barn, shed, and structures at that place be removed under the direction of the treasurer, Henry Hilton. What? So wait, what did she say? That the, in these boring meetings, it says that we're going to get rid of this crappy shed that he's been moved into. Yeah. With all the structures in it. So that's like bureaucratic speak for the beautiful dinosaur models.

Yeah. And it's all under the direction, not of Buzz Twain, right, but of, ooh, this Henry Hilton guy. Yeah. So, I mean, and this was like, you know, this was huge for her. I didn't leap around the place because I'm British, but I was pretty pleased. There's one more piece of evidence, by the way, in Vicky's favor. And it is that Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins himself blames Hilton directly in a New York Times article in 1872.

Oh, okay. Yeah. So what's, who's Henry Hilton? Who's Henry Hilton? Who's Henry Hilton? So Henry Hilton is the treasurer of this board that is running the park. And he has this reputation already as somebody who's kind of a jerk, kind of an oddball, and also who like doesn't have a ton of respect for artifacts.

Henry Hilton is known for kind of going around Central Park, like, bossing everybody around. Like, there's this one story of him coming across this statue made of bronze. And he's like, you know what? Statues aren't supposed to be bronze. They're supposed to be white, like marble or whatever. And he tells the sculptor, like, you got to paint the statue white. And the sculptor's like, no, like, it's a bronze statue. And so Hilton's like, no. He, like, gets somebody, he finds somebody else and gets somebody else to paint the statue white.

He's got ideas. He's a man with a plan. And instead, every statue needs to be white. Yeah. I mean, another weird thing that he does is they get this collection of whale bones. And he's like, we got to paint these white. Yeah, right. And he actually, like, gets made fun of in the New York Times for being this guy with a can of white paint, like running around painting everything white.

And there's another clue here that I want to mention. Yeah. Because Henry Hilton is also a supporter of a different museum that is in the works at this time. It's the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Very famous. Famously does exist, Wendy. Yes. Yeah.

And right next to Central Park. And of course, that's in the works. I mean, it's true. If you go there, I was there the other day, over the door, it's like founded in 1869. And remember, we're talking about 1871, this happening. This is like the exact same time that these two museums are potentially in the works. Oh.

So. So you think, conspiracy like tinfoil hat time, do you think like the organizers of the American Natural History Museum smashed these dinosaurs? Because they were jealous. Because they didn't want the competition. I, well, I do know there were a lot of powerful people behind the American Museum of Natural History, to go full tinfoil hat. I did actually reach out. I've reached out to the American Museum of Natural History on multiple occasions to ask them about this. And have received radio silence so far. Oh.

But a couple of things. Like, we don't have any direct evidence that it was competition between the two museums that caused the dinosaur smash-up. Okay. Vicky is not saying that, to be clear. So why does she think Hilton did it? Yeah. Well, let me tell you. Let me tell you why Vicky thinks Hilton did it.

So, as much as Hawkins, our artist, did some important work, he also like sometimes kind of sucked. And there's this one story in particular that Vicky told me that I think kind of illustrates this. He got into some nonsense back in the UK. He was actually a bigamist. He was married with two families. And there is some speculation that actually it would be a good idea for him to get out of there because I think one wife had found out about the other wife, and it was perhaps more tactical withdrawal. Yeah, it was decades, by the way, that this woman did not know he had a second family. Anyway, it's a whole, yeah. I mean, it was easier back then, right? Yeah. No social media. Exactly. Exactly. None of that suspicious Instagram content.

Right, right. So it's not just being sneaky with wives. Like, in general, Hawkins, he could be, like, pretty crusty. He had fallen out with paleontologists. Like, he was fighting with scientists. Kind of thought he knew more than everybody else did. Kind of thought he was the smartest guy in the room.

So when it comes to Henry Hilton ordering the dino smash-up, like, here is what Vicky thinks happened. I actually think it was personal. I think that we saw Hilton was a strange character, incredibly arrogant, thought he knew best. But we also know now that Hawkins himself, he could also be incredibly arrogant, incredibly arrogant. If Hilton had tried to criticize Hawkins' work, Hawkins was going to be having arrogant, incredibly arrogant. If Hilton had tried to criticize

Hawkins' work, Hawkins was going to be having absolutely none of it. And so it seemed to me that that's where the real root of this happened. And of course, we can't be witnesses to history, but I strongly suspect that there might well have been some quite fruity arguments or whatever between the two that might well have eventually triggered this. If you were making a film, you would have quite a good showdown, I think. So she just hubris smashed the dinosaurs. Is that what she's saying? Yeah.

I mean, God creates man, man creates dinosaurs. Man smashes dinosaurs. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's what she thinks. She's kind of like, you know, we don't have, we don't have like a, we haven't found a ton of like direct evidence of that. But she's like, look, I know these were two jerks. I think they were on a collision course. Right. It is funny because like our obsession as humans with wanting to like,

why, why would you do this? Why would you smash it? And then how they like, how history had kind of developed this theory about Boss Tweed. Maybe he couldn't make enough like illegal money from it, which seems like it was like a total bullshit motive. And then with Hilton, I kind of love that Vicky was like, you know what the motivation was?

They were both kind of assholes, and Hilton was a bigger asshole. Yeah. There's no bigger idea here. It's just like assholedom. So last year, Vicky and a colleague wrote this paper, like laying this whole thing out. You know, this idea that, like, Tweed wasn't involved at all, that Hilton was the ringleader of this whole disaster. And while Vicky wasn't the first person to ID Hilton as the culprit, like, this paper was a big deal for Carl.

I mean, he's been following this dino smash-up for years, and he was just like... Wow. They put in the time they dug so deep they were obsessed they found things that a lot of people missed it's pretty amazing and there's one more mystery to this story so um there's been actually conflicting reports of what happened to the smashed up bits of models. There were actually some claims that they were dumped in a lake or even that the dino model chunks were like used to pave the paths of the park, which just feels like it would be such a dick move.

Like smashing them up and putting them as rocks down under people's feet for us to walk on. So Carl, this is the last thing I did with Carl. He's done a lot of research on this, and he thinks he knows the right spot, like the real deal for where the pieces are, if they exist in Central Park. And it's this place called The Mount. Oh, wait, so...

Is it this hill? It's apparently this hill, yeah. I think most stories point to this. This is where the smashed dinosaurs lay? Yeah, this is the smashed dinosaur graveyard. I would love to see a piece of one of the models. I would love to see that. So we're walking up this hill. So far, rocks and grass.

Does anything look suspicious to you? No, what, just the dinosaur head sticking out of the ground? No. All of it is just gone. And there's no marker here, there's nothing. There's no sign that this was anything but a hill. But there's a whole story here. I know, I keep looking at the ground like I'm going to see anything but cigarette butts. I don't know, there's probably something here.

I want there to be. I'm a dreamer. I'm a romantic. But I'm also like a scientist addicted to accuracy and those two worlds rarely cross over.

No, they cross over all the time. What am I talking about? I mean, Carl, you know, he is hopeful

that like maybe there is something left. Toa Bahadur, like maybe one of the thugs took a souvenir home that day. So there is stuff that might be out there. A hundred percent.

It has to be there. Some, somebody's sequestered this stuff in their basement or in some frozen mountain out west. Something. The story is not over.

If you have a dinosaur paw, claw, something in your basement. Dinosaur crimes. Yes. Dinosaur crimes have been committed.

Wendy, we cannot let it stand. We will not. We will not. We cannot. Someone's going to find something cool. What if we wait here long enough? Some nerd's going to tell us what happened here. That's all I want.

I just want to wait long enough for a nerd to tell me what happened. That's all we exist for. Thank you, Blythe. Thank you, Wendy. That is Science Fest's The Great Dino Smash-Up of 1871. Hello.

Ari, introduce yourself. My name is Ari Natovich. I was an intern at Science Versus, and I have been doing science writing ever since then. How many citations are in this episode? There are 49 citations in this episode. 49. People can find them in a link to There are 49 citations in this episode. 49. People can find them in a link to the transcript, which is in our show notes.

Ari, what are you most excited about when it comes to this episode? I'm excited for the audience to get to see pictures of these weird, weird creatures and what they would have looked like. Oh, yeah, which we're going to put on our Instagram, which is science underscore VS. And also something, Ari, that you don't know about, but we need your help with as well, is if you go onto our Instagram, there is a survey that we want all of our listeners to fill out, which has nothing to do with dinosaurs. It's about the last mysteries of sex.

Basically, for a future episode, I have tried desperately to find scientific answers to some questions, and I cannot, and we need your help. And last time that we did a similar survey, we ended up getting it published. It was our survey on blue balls, which is now published in peer-reviewed literature. So if you want to help science, totally anonymous survey, please, please help us out. All right. You should do it too. Oh, you know, I love to anonymously help science. Excellent. And I hope all of our listeners do too. It's on our Instagram, science underscore VS. It's also the link in my TikTok, which is at Wendy Zuckerman, and it'll be in the show notes. Thank you so much, Ari. Nice to hear from you.

It's great to hear from you. This episode was produced by Blythe Terrell, with help from me, Wendy Zuckerman, Ari Natavich, Michelle Dang, Meryl Horn, Rose Rimler, and Joel Werner. Editing by Blythe and me. Fact-checking by Erica Akiko Howard. Mix and sound design by Bobby Lord. Music written by Bobby Lord, Thank you so much to everyone that we spoke to for this episode, including Professor Gowan Dawson, Robert Peck,

Wendy Anthony and Jessica Lidden. A special thanks to Jack Weinstein, the Zuckerman family and Joseph Lavelle Wilson. Science Versus is a Spotify Studios original. Listen to us for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. But if you are listening on Spotify, then just tap the bell icon

and you'll get notifications whenever new episodes come out. If you want to fill out our sex survey and you should do it, head to our Instagram and just there's a link in the bio. It's also in my TikTok, at Wendy Zuckerman. You could be a part of science.

Go fill it out. I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Back to you next time. Do you want me to tell you a New York anecdote to get us in the mood? Yeah, tell me a New York anecdote. Tell me New York. I'm in New York. Have you missed it?

I mean, there was a human turd on the way here. You know, I wasn't going to tell you until we were on the mic, but I did leave that for you to help you find your way to the office. It was huge. It was so huge. And saving it up. Because I just wanted to give you the classic

New York welcome. It just wouldn't be right to welcome you with anything but a steaming pile of sidewalk feces.