Born in 1799 in Lyme Regis, a small town on the southern coast of England, Mary Anning became recognized as a pioneering paleontologist and fossil collector. The earliest record of a fossil discovery was about 1,500 years before she was born.
Her father, Richard Anning, was a cabinet maker and fossil collector. He taught her and her older brother, Joseph, how to look for and clean fossil specimens—a skill they later relied on to support the family. His death on November 5, 1810 left Molly Anning a widowed mother of two, pregnant with a third child.
The fossils—which were located in the cliffs along the beaches of what is now called the Jurassic Coast—were mostly ammonites which he would display on a table in front of his shop.
At the age of 12, Mary Anning unearthed an unrecognizable creature… a 200 million year-old marine reptile. It was the first complete ichthyosaur fossil—Latin for “fish lizard”—as named by scientist Charles Koenig in 1817. Initially thought to be the skeleton of a crocodile, her find would later be acknowledged by the Geological Society in London. They refused to admit women until 1904.
The ichthyosaur was bought from Anning for £23 and then purchased by the British Museum at auction in 1819. It can still be seen at the Natural History Museum today.
She found another complete ichthyosaur in 1821, two complete plesiosaurs (1823 and 1830) and the first pterodactyl found in Britain (1828), becoming important contributions to the science of paleontology. Unlike ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, pterosaurs had wings and were believed to be the largest-ever flying animals.
In the 1820's, Mary took over the family fossil business. Lacking formal schooling, she was still able to read, write, draw, and reconstruct fossil skeletons.
During much of 19th century Europe, the majority of her finds ended up in museums and personal collections without credit being given to her as the discoverer of the fossils. Male geologists, who frequently bought the fossils, would sometimes publish them as their own work. Scientists doubted the validity of her finds, and few were willing to take her seriously until French anatomist Georges Cuvier declared her plesiosaur specimen to be genuine. While she was not trained as a scientist, her findings changed science.
In 1847, Mary Anning died at the age of 47 from breast cancer, still in financial strain despite her scientific discoveries. She is buried at St. Michael the Archangel Church in Lyme Regis.
Twelve years after her death, Charles Darwin’s book The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection was published.
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Works cited:
- Eylott, Marie-Claire. “Mary Anning: The Unsung Hero of Fossil Discovery.” Natural History Museum, https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/mary-anning-unsung-hero.html
- Kaufman, Rachel. “Mary Anning: Life and Discoveries of the First Female Paleontologist.” LiveScience, Purch, 22 Feb. 2021
- “Mary Anning.” Lyme Regis Museum, 15 Nov. 2021
- Torrens, Hugh. “Mary Anning (1799-1847).” UC Museum of Paleontology
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