Mary Anning was born in Lyme Regis, in Dorset, England, which is now part of what is called the Jurassic Coast. Her only education in reading and writing came from attending Sunday school. In her childhood, she and her brother helped her father on his fossil-hunting expeditions and sold their finding to supplement their family income.
In 1810, when she was 11 years old, her father died, and she and her brother continued collecting and selling fossils from a stand they set up by a local inn. Most of their collection included invertebrate fossils such as ammonite and belemnite shells. In 1811, Anning’s brother found a 4-foot skull, and within a few months, she found the rest of the 17-feet-long skeleton of what will be later named an Ichthyosaurus, or fish lizard, that lived in the area 201-194 million years ago.
The selling of the fossils was the family’s only income, and she devoted herself to this challenging task. It included a daily search on the beach, especially after tides, walking miles under the cliffs, and searching for objects that could lead to a hidden fossil, under the risk of being crushed by fallen masses. She furthered her research beyond the seashore, read any scientific literature she could find, and dissected modern animals to understand better the anatomy of the fossils she had collected. She also wrote her notes and observations on the fossils and made accurate drawings of each and every one of them.
Despite Anning’s hard and life-threatening work, the fossils she found and sold were not enough to make ends meet, so in 1820, one of her major clients, Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas James Birch, purchased several specimens to support her financially and even auctioned off his collection and donated the proceeds to Anning and her family.
In 1823, at 24, she uncovered the first complete Plesiosaurus skeleton. After it got authenticated by various scholars, Anning began to receive recognition from the scientific community. Within three years, she saved enough money to open Anning’s Fossil Depot shop. Many geologists and fossil collectors from the UK and abroad came to her shop to view and purchase her findings; some of them accompanied her on her fossil-hunting tours, and many of them did not credit her for her work after they published their conclusions on the specimens she excavated.
Over the next decade, Anning uncovered numerous science-changing discoveries, including a flying reptile called a Dimorphodon, which was the first pterosaur specimen found outside German, a long-necked marine reptile called a plesiosaur, and a fish called Squaloraja, which was a member of a transition group between sharks and rays. She was also one of the first to search for coprolites, fossilized poo, which helped analyze dinosaurs’ nutrition.
Although she was not admitted into the Geological Society (which did not include women until 1904), many scholars recognized her contribution to the field and came to her help. In 1835, after losing her life savings in a bad investment, her friend and client, the geologist and paleontologist William Buckland, urged the British government and the British Association for the Advancement of Science to give her a civil list pension as a recognition of her contributions to the science of geology. The yearly £25 she received was her only financial security. In 1846, after she was diagnosed with breast cancer, the Geological Society raised money to help her with the medical expenses.
She died at the age of 47 after dedicating her life to the science of paleontology. Her discoveries provided evidence for species’ extinction and helped develop the theory of evolution.
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