Brian Switek

Writing under the name Brian Switek, Riley Black is a collection of 206-some odd bones and associated soft tissues. She's the author of several books, including My Beloved Brontosaurus and Written In Stone, and she writes for the Scientific American blog, Laelaps. A fossil fanatic since the time she was knee-high to a Stegosaurus, she is the resident palaeontologist for JurassicWorld.com.

The Bone Wars | How a bitter rivalry drove progress in palaeontology

In this extract from The Secret Life of Bones, Brian Switek (pen name of science writer and fossil fanatic Riley Black) explains how Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope's rivalry brought us the Triceratops.