Mary Anning information sheets

Mary Anning was born in 1799 in the Dorset town of Lyme Regis. Her dad was a keen fossil hunter and showed Mary and her brother, Joseph, how to find and collect fossils from the local beaches. This part of the coast is now known as the Jurassic Coast due to the high number of pre-historic fossils found there.

When Anning was 11 her dad died but she carried on looking for and collecting fossils in order to sell them. Anning’s family was very poor so they needed to earn as much money as possible from the sale of the fossils.

Anning didn’t attend school as she needed to earn money for the family, and it was too expensive at the time to attend. She taught herself how to read, write and draw, and read all about anatomy to help her understand the way the fossilised animals that she found were formed.

When she was 12, Anning’s brother spotted the fossilised skull of an Ichthyosaur. Anning uncovered it and discovered what turned out to be the first complete Ichthyosaur fossil to be found. This was an important discovery because it challenged the way scientists had thought the natural world had developed. In 1823 Anning discovered a Plesiosaurus and in

1828 she discovered a Pterodactylus.

Many scientists came to visit Anning because she was so knowledgeable about her finds and the many other pre-historic fossils she had uncovered. She corresponded regularly with scientists, including Adam Sedgewick, who taught geology at Cambridge University.

Most of the fossils Anning uncovered she sold in order to have an income. However, in 1838 she received an annual income from the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the Geological Society of London, to fund her so that she could continue her valuable work on fossils.

Anning is often referred to as one of the first palaeontologists – scientists who study fossils – and her work started to change our understanding of how the world has evolved. Charles Darwin, a famous botanist who explained the theory of evolution (how plants and animals change and evolve of thousands of years), published his theory after

Anning’s finds. He likely found her work useful in the development of his theories.

Anning died at the age of 47, and although she wasn’t allowed to be a member of the

Geological Society (a scientific society for scientists who worked on rocks and the things found in them) because she was a woman, her death was noted by the society, highlighting her important contribution to science.

The first Ichthyosaur

Scientists thought at first that this was a crocodile. At the time most people assumed that unearthed, unrecognisable creatures had simply migrated to far-off lands. By this time,

Georges Cuvier, known as the father of palaeontology, had only recently introduced the theory of extinction. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species would not be published for another 48 years. The mysterious specimen was studied and debated for years. It was eventually named Ichthyosaurus, or 'fish lizard' - though we now know it was neither fish nor lizard, but a marine reptile. It lived 201-194 million years ago.

Plesiosaurus

In 1823 Mary was the first to discover the complete skeleton of a Plesiosaurus, meaning

'near to reptile'. So strange was the specimen and so quickly had the news spread that soon there were rumours that the fossil was a fake. Georges Cuvier himself disputed the find. A special meeting was scheduled at the Geological Society of London, though Mary was not invited. After lengthy debate, Cuvier admitted to his mistake.

Pterosaur

In 1828 Mary uncovered a strange jumble of bones, this time with a long tail - and wings.

Once again, news of her discovery travelled fast. Scientists from London to Paris theorised on this 'unknown species of that most rare and curious of all reptiles'. What she found were the first remains attributed to a Dimorphodon. It was the first pterosaur ever discovered outside Germany. The name Pterodactyl was coined later. Unlike ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, pterosaurs had wings and were believed to be the largest-ever flying animals.

Coprolites

Another of Mary's contributions to science, though arguably less glamorous, is that she pioneered the study of coprolites - or fossilised poo. She first found examples of fossilized animal faeces in 1824, although she was unsure of what she had found. In 1828, she found more of these objects in the abdomens of ichthyosaurs. Breaking some open, she found bones and fish scales. She deduced she was handling fossilized faeces. Studying the contents of fossilized faeces has given scientists a window on the diets of animals hundreds of millions of years ago.