Mary Anning facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Mary Anning
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| Born | 21 May 1799 Lyme Regis, Dorset, England
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| Died | 9 March 1847 Lyme Regis
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| Occupation | Fossil collector and paleontologist |
| Children | none |
| Parent(s) | Richard and Mary Anning |
Mary Anning (born May 21, 1799 – died March 9, 1847) was an amazing British fossil hunter. She lived in a town called Lyme Regis in England. This area was famous for its rich Jurassic rocks, which held many ancient sea creatures. Mary earned her living by finding, preparing, and selling these fossils.
She made many very important discoveries. These included the first complete skeleton of an ichthyosaur (a giant marine reptile) that was correctly identified. She also found the first two plesiosaur skeletons ever discovered. Plesiosaurs were another type of large marine reptile. Mary also found the first pterosaur skeleton outside of Germany. Pterosaurs were flying reptiles. She also found many important fish fossils.
Mary's careful observations helped scientists learn that belemnite fossils contained fossilized ink sacs. She also showed that "bezoar stones," as they were called then, were actually coprolites, which are fossilized poop! Her work was very important for understanding life on Earth long ago. It proved that many unknown forms of life lived in the Jurassic seas and later died out completely.
Mary came from a poor family. This made it hard for her to be fully accepted by the scientific community. At that time, science was mostly for rich, educated men. Some men she worked with gave her full credit for her discoveries. But others did not.
Even though she became well-known among scientists in Britain, Europe, and America, she often struggled with money. In 1818, she sold an ichthyosaur skeleton to a rich fossil collector named Thomas Birch. He later helped her family by selling his own fossil collection and giving the money to them. This helped her family and also made her more famous in the world of geology. Later, she lost a lot of money in bad investments. But a friend named William Buckland helped her get a small yearly payment from the government. Mary died young from breast cancer.
Contents
Her Amazing Discoveries
Mary Anning was a true pioneer in finding and understanding fossils. Her discoveries helped change how people thought about Earth's history and the creatures that lived long ago.
Ichthyosaurs
In 1810, Mary's brother Joseph found an ichthyosaur skull. A year later, Mary found the rest of the skeleton. This was the first complete ichthyosaur skeleton ever found and correctly identified. Ichthyosaurs were giant marine reptiles that looked a bit like dolphins. This discovery made Mary and her family known to geologists and fossil fans.
Plesiosaurs
Mary also found the first two skeletons of another huge marine reptile called a plesiosaur. These creatures had long necks, small heads, and four large flippers. Her first plesiosaur discovery was in 1820-1821. These finds were incredibly important because they showed scientists new types of ancient life.
Pterosaurs and Other Finds
In 1828, Mary found the first pterosaur skeleton outside of Germany. Pterosaurs were flying reptiles, not dinosaurs, but they lived at the same time. She also found many important fish fossils. Her work helped scientists understand how different ancient animals lived and how they fit into the natural world.
Fossilized Poop and Ink
Mary's sharp eyes led to other amazing discoveries. She noticed strange stones that were called "bezoar stones." She realized these were actually coprolites, which are fossilized animal waste (poop). She also found that belemnite fossils, which are ancient squid-like creatures, sometimes contained fossilized ink sacs. These observations were very important for understanding the diet and behavior of ancient animals.
The Fossil Shop
Lyme Regis was a popular place for tourists. Mary and her brother Joseph, like their father before them, set up a table to sell fossils. They sold their finds to tourists and visitors. After their big ichthyosaur discovery, their passion for fossils became the main way their family earned money.
Mary sold common fossils like ammonite and belemnite shells for a small amount of money. But rarer fossils, like a complete ichthyosaur skeleton, could sell for much more.
The fossils came from the cliffs around Lyme Regis. These cliffs are part of a rock formation called the Blue Lias. It has layers of limestone and shale. These layers formed from mud and sand on a shallow seabed about 210-195 million years ago, during the early Jurassic period. These cliffs are one of the best places in Britain to find fossils.
As Mary made more important discoveries, her fame grew. In 1826, when she was 27, she saved enough money to buy a house with a glass window for her shop. She called it Anning's Fossil Depot. The local newspaper even wrote about her new shop. Many geologists and fossil collectors from all over the world visited Mary in Lyme Regis to buy her specimens. Even King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony visited her shop in 1844 and bought an ichthyosaur skeleton for his collection.
Sharing Her Knowledge
Mary Anning was not just a fossil finder; she was also very knowledgeable about geology and paleontology.
In 1824, a woman named Lady Harriet Silvester visited Lyme. She wrote in her diary about Mary:
... the extraordinary thing in this young woman is that she has made herself so thoroughly acquainted with the science that the moment she finds any bones she knows to what tribe they belong. She fixes the bones on a frame with cement and then makes drawings and has them engraved. . . It is certainly a wonderful instance of divine favour – that this poor, ignorant girl should be so blessed, for by reading and application she has arrived to that degree of knowledge as to be in the habit of writing and talking with professors and other clever men on the subject, and they all acknowledge that she understands more of the science than anyone else in this kingdom.
As Mary grew older, she became more confident in her knowledge. In 1839, she even wrote a letter to a science magazine called Magazine of Natural History. She questioned their claim about a new discovery of a prehistoric shark tooth. Mary had known for years that fossil sharks had both straight and hooked teeth. The magazine printed a part of her letter. This was the only thing Mary Anning ever published herself.
Her Legacy
Mary Anning's life story has inspired many people. She is even the subject of a famous tongue-twister: "She sells sea shells on the seashore." This tongue-twister was written in 1908, long after she died, by Terry Sullivan. He was inspired by her life story. The original words were:
She sells seashells on the seashore
The shells she sells are seashells, I'm sure
So if she sells seashells on the seashore
Then I'm sure she sells seashore shells.
Mary Anning's story has been told in many books, especially for children. These stories often focus on her childhood and early career. While some parts might be romanticized, they show how inspiring her life was. She also appeared as a character in a famous novel called The French Lieutenant's Woman.
Although no British scientist named a species after her during her lifetime, a Swiss-American expert on fossil fish, Louis Agassiz, did. In the 1840s, he named two fossil fish species, Acrodus anningiae and Belenostomus anningiae, after her. He was thankful for the help Mary and her friend Elizabeth Philpot gave him in studying fossil fish.
Major Finds
- Ichthyosaur 1810/11
- Several Ichthyosaurs 1815/19
- Plesiosaurus 1820/21
- Ink-sac of belemnite 1826
- Pterosaur 1828
- Fossil fish 1828/29
- Plesiosaur 1830
Images for kids
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Lyme Regis, Dorset
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Blue Lias cliffs, Lyme Regis
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The Jurassic coast at Charmouth, Dorset, where the Annings made some of their finds. The hill in the background is Golden Cap.
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Drawing from an 1814 paper by Everard Home showing the Ichthyosaurus platyodon skull found by Joseph Anning in 1811
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Letter and drawing from Mary Anning announcing the discovery of a fossil animal now known as Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus, 26 December 1823
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The lithograph print of Duria Antiquior, made by Scharf based on De la Beche's original watercolour
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Gravestone of Anning and her brother Joseph in St Michael's churchyard
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Mary Anning's Window, St Michael's Church
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Drawing of part of the skeletal remains of Temnodontosaurus platyodon, the first ichthyosaur found by Anning – from Everard Home's 1814 paper
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Drawing published in the Transactions of the Geological Society of the nearly complete Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus skeleton found by Anning in 1823
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Cast of Plesiosaurus macrocephalus found by Mary Anning in 1830, Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, Paris
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The holotype specimen of Dimorphodon macronyx found by Mary Anning in 1828
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Posthumous painting of Anning by B. J. Donne from 1847, based on the 1842 portrait at the head of this article, showing her pointing at an ammonite
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Mary Anning statue unveiling, 21 May 2022
See also
In Spanish: Mary Anning para niños
