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Portrait of Mary Anning

Science · Maths, astronomy, medicine & more

Mary Anning

1799–1847 · English

Palaeontology

Mary Anning was a fossil collector and palaeontologist from Lyme Regis, Dorset, whose finds on the Jurassic coast transformed early 19th-century understanding of prehistoric life. She found the first ichthyosaur skeleton to be correctly identified, the first complete plesiosaur and the first pterosaur found in Britain. As a working-class woman she was barred from the Geological Society and often uncredited, but is now celebrated as a pioneer.

How to spot them

  • ▸Lyme Regis, Dorset; the Jurassic Coast; fossil hunter selling finds to visitors
  • ▸Ichthyosaur, plesiosaur, Dimorphodon (pterosaur); coprolites
  • ▸Survived a lightning strike as a baby
  • ▸Said to have inspired 'She sells seashells on the seashore' (unproven)
  • ▸Played by Kate Winslet in the film Ammonite (2020)

Key discoveries & works

First correctly identified ichthyosaur skeleton (c. 1811–1812)

Skull found by her brother Joseph; she uncovered the rest of the skeleton

First complete plesiosaur skeleton (1823)

Found at Lyme Regis; Cuvier at first doubted it was genuine

First pterosaur skeleton found outside Germany (1828)

Later named Dimorphodon

Identification of fossil faeces (coprolites) (1820s)

Helped William Buckland recognise 'bezoar stones' as fossilised dung

Squaloraja fossil fish (1829)

A transitional fish between sharks and rays

Key ideas

  • Her finds supported the idea of extinction, then still controversial
  • Showed that careful field observation could be as important as academic theory

Quick-fire facts

  • •Born in Lyme Regis in 1799, daughter of a cabinet-maker who collected and sold fossils
  • •In 1800 she survived a lightning strike that killed three women holding her
  • •Her dog Tray was killed by a landslide in 1833
  • •Women could not join the Geological Society, but after her death its president Henry De la Beche read a eulogy to her
  • •A stained-glass window in St Michael's Church, Lyme Regis, commemorates her
  • •A statue of her was unveiled in Lyme Regis in 2022

Drill it — 6 cards

1 / 6new card

Sources