Biography: Mary Anning
The Pioneering Female Paleontologist
This portrait shows Mary Anning decked out in middle class Georgian clothing of the time. This would have been the most formal outdoor wear Mary had. According to Eleanor Emma Warings' writings, Mary would have been more plainly dressed while fossil collecting. The Golden Cap outcrop is behind her in the distance. It also shows Mary Anning's dog named Tray. Unfortunately, the fluffy fossil hunting companion was killed in an 1833 cliff fall that almost killed Mary Anning. (Public Domain)
Summary Points
A small pyrite Ammonite found on the beach below Black Ven, between Lyme Regis and Charmouth in Dorset. Image Credit: Partonex. (CC BY-SA 4.0)
At the age of 12, Mary and her brother discovered the first nearly complete ichthyosaur.
In 1823 she discovered the very first nearly complete plesiosaur.
Among her other discoveries include many other nearly complete plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs, the first pterosaur outside of Britain, and was pinnacle in the interpretation of coprolites (fossil poop).
Mary and her fossil hunting friends would draw fossil diagrams using reconstituted fossil belemnite ink.
As a woman, she was largely excluded from mainstream science. Still, many prominent naturalists and geologists visited her fossil shop to discuss paleontology and acquire her fossils.
Mary had a close-knit network of other female paleontologists, who were also mostly ignored by scientists of the time.
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The Life of Mary Anning (1799-1847)
Birth
Mary Anning was born into a poor family in Lyme Regis in 1799. Of all the Anning children, only Mary and her brother Joseph survived to adulthood.
According to the stories passed down, Mary's own survival was almost a miracle.
When she was just 15 months old, a friend of her mother carried her to a traveling equine comedy show. During the event, a sudden storm rolled in,
and many people rushed to find shelter. The caretaker holding Mary joined several others beneath a nearby tree. Lightning struck the tree, killing everyone but Mary.
After that day, many in Lyme Regis viewed her as a child touched by fate, someone destined for an unusual and remarkable life.
Lyme Regis Fossils
The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars in the early 1800s made mainland Europe an unsafe place for wealthy British gentry to vacation.
As a result, many began spending their holidays at seaside towns. Places like Lyme Regis soon became popular summer destinations,
where visitors enjoyed the fresh salt air and sea breezes that were believed to have healing properties. The town also had another draw:
it sits right in the heart of the Jurassic Coast along the Blue Lias Formation.
Tourists came to explore the beaches, search for fossils, and buy ammonites and other curiosities as memorable seaside souvenirs.
This is a picture from 1909 of a couple sitting on the Blue Lias Rocks on the East Beach at Lyme Regis. The Blue Lias Formation contains numerous Jurassic fossils, including Ammonites and Belemnites. This image is from The Freshford - Charmouth collection.
The Anning Fossil Business
Mary Anning's father, Richard, worked as a carpenter, but like most of the poor working class, the family often struggled financially.
So, like many residents of Lyme Regis, he turned to the cliffs for extra income.
Fossils were easy to find along the Blue Lias, and visitors were willing to buy them as souvenirs.
Mary and her brother Joseph often joined their father on these collecting trips. Even as children,
they learned how to spot fossils weathering out of the shales and mudstones, how to safely remove them,
and how to tell the difference between ammonites, belemnites, and other common finds.
Most of what they sold were ammonites and shells, but every so often something far more impressive emerged from the cliffs; pieces of ancient fish, and even large marine reptiles,
which were thought to be crocodiles.
When Mary was just eleven, her father died of tuberculosis and injuries sustained from a fall off the cliffs,
leaving the family in an even more difficult position.
Her mother, Mary "Molly" Moore, stepped in to keep the fossil business going.
Mary and Joseph searched the beaches daily, often in cold, wet, or dangerous conditions, gathering fossils to sell to tourists and collectors.
Those long hours on the shore became the foundation of Mary Anning's extraordinary skill and the career that would eventually reshape paleontology.
Discoveries:
First Scientifically Described Ichthyosaur
Mary and Joseph didn't have to wait long before their hard work led to something extraordinary.
In 1811, Joseph spotted a large ichthyosaur skull at the base of the cliffs. Over the next several months, Mary kept searching the site and eventually uncovered
the rest of the skeleton. The family carefully excavated and cleaned the remains until a nearly complete 15-foot marine reptile emerged.
At the time, nothing this complete had ever been found.
The specimen was eventually sold to Sir Everard Home of the Royal Society of London.
He went on to publish a scientific paper describing the animal, the first formal description of an ichthyosaur.
Over the next few years Home wrote a series of papers on this animal, reclassifying it over and over again. Reading the papers today can be a bit confusing.
This was decades before Darwin's work on evolution, and scientists were still wrestling with the idea of extinct creatures
and how fossils fit into Earth's history. As was typical of the era, the paper made no mention of Mary or Joseph.
Scientific credit was often reserved for wealthy, educated men, even when the real discoveries were made by working-class collectors like the Annings.
This is a cast of the Ichthyosaur skull and part of the skeleton that Joseph and Mary found in 1811. Also not shown here are numerous vertebra making the specimen over 15 feet in length. It's now classified as Temnodontosaurus platydon. This cast is on display at the Lyme Regis Museum. The original is in the British Museum of Natural History in the marine reptile hall.
As Mary grew older, her role in the family fossil business became even more central.
Joseph eventually found work as an upholsterer to help support the household, which meant he had less time to spend on the beaches.
Mary, however, continued searching the cliffs every day, becoming the family's primary fossil collector.
By the 1820s, her efforts were paying off. She uncovered several more ichthyosaurs, and many of these specimens ended up in the hands of leading naturalists,
who published detailed descriptions in major scientific journals.
Mary didn't just collect fossils, she prepared and studied them.
She examined their anatomy, compared specimens, and read as many scientific publications as she could obtain.
In doing so, she taught herself the principles of a new and rapidly developing field that would soon be known as paleontology.
First Complete Plesiosaurus
In 1823, Mary made one of her most astonishing discoveries: the first nearly complete Plesiosaurus skeleton ever found.
The specimen was so extraordinary that the renowned naturalist Georges Cuvier initially suspected it was a hoax.
It wasn't until conversations with other naturalists that he accepted it as genuine.
The find brought Mary international attention, and visitors from across Britain and even from abroad, traveled to Lyme Regis hoping to meet the young woman behind the discovery.
Despite this fame, her name was still frequently left out of the scientific papers that described her fossils, a sign of the social barriers of the time.
After the first discovery, Mary went on to uncover a second nearly complete plesiosaur and several additional specimens.
Some of these remarkable fossils are now displayed at the Natural History Museum in London.
Mary Anning's letter from December 26, 1823 discussing her Plesiosaurus discovery. (Public Domain).
Fossil Poop
Mary Anning is also responsible for the interpretation of fossil poop.
While examining ichthyosaur skeletons, she often found lumpy objects in the gut area.
When she broke them open, she discovered fish bones and scales inside.
William Buckland, a well-known geologist and friend of Mary, who frequently visited Lyme Regis, recognized the significance of her work.
Using Mary's observations, he determined that these objects were fossilized feces and gave them the name coprolites.
In his paper, Buckland made a point of crediting and praising "Miss Mary Anning" for her careful observations.
These are drawing of fossil poop from Bucklands paper that Mary Anning found. This is plate 28 from Buckland, W. (1835): On the discovery of coprolites, or fossil faeces, in the Lias at Lyme Regis, and in other formations. Transactions of the Geological Society of London, second series 3: 223-236. Image from a digitized copy at the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
First Pterosaur outside of Germany
Another of Mary Anning's notable discoveries was the first pterosaur found outside of Germany.
In 1828, she uncovered a jumble of bones from a headless creature and immediately recognized that they were unlike any fossils she had seen before.
She brought the specimen to William Buckland, who identified it as belonging to a pterosaur.
Around the same time, Mary's mentor and fossil-collecting friend, Elizabeth Philpot, discovered the jaw of a pterosaur.
Buckland studied Mary and Elizabeth's fossils which became the fisrt pterosaur found outside of Germany. The specimen is now part of the collection
at the Natural History Museum in London, where it is still on display today.
What's a pterosaur? Learn about Pterosaurs here.
Mary Anning found the first Pterosaur outside of Germany. Her holotype specimen is called Dimorphodon macronyx and was found in the Blue Lias of Lyme Regis. This is specimen number PV R 1034 at the Natural History Museum, London. Image from the digitized collection of the British Museum - Credit: The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London (CC-by-4.0).
Fossil Ink
One of Mary Anning's more unusual discoveries was fossilized ink from belemnites.
Ammonites and belemnites were the most common fossils along the Blue Lias cliffs of Lyme Regis and Charmouth,
but no one had recognized the significance of the tiny ink sacs until Mary identified them.
Her discovery showed that belemnites were closely related to modern squids.
Mary's fossil-hunting friend and mentor, Elizabeth Philpot, took things a step further by mixing the fossil ink with water to reconstitute it.
Mary, Elizabeth, and other friends soon used the recreated belemnite ink to produce detailed drawings and diagrams of their fossils.
This is a sketch of an ichthyosaur from part of a letter from Elizabeth Philpot to Mary Buckland from 1833. Philot's sketch is made from fossil belemnite ink. Elizabeth Philpot and her two other fossil collecting sisters had a close-knit friendship with Mary Anning. A collection of her letters are housed at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
By 1826, the Mary Anning had earned enough from selling fossils to buy a new home on Broad Street, a busy street in the center of town.
Mary, her mother, and now her dog "Tray" left behind their original house, which was near a crumbling seawall and often battered by storms; this area is now the site of the Lyme Regis Museum.
In their new home, they opened a fossil shop called "Anning's Fossil Depot." The family displayed their most impressive finds in the large storefront window,
including a full-size ichthyosaur, attracting both locals and visitors eager to see the wonders of the Jurassic Coast up close.
This is a photo of the 'Old Fossil Shop' on Broad Street in downtown Lyme Regis. This was not Mary Anning's fossil shop, as it was further up Broad Street. This particular shop became a famous fossil shop after Mary Annings death. It was run by the Dollin family for many years. This image is from 1909, long after Mary Anning and the Dollins. The building was destroyed in 1913 to widen Broad Street. This image is from The Freshford - Charmouth collection.
Mary Anning and the Scientific Community
Being a woman in early 19th-century Britain meant Mary Anning had very few rights. Despite her growing fame in the scientific community for both her fossils and her expertise
, she was never allowed to join professional societies.
Still, many prominent geologists and naturalists corresponded with her and visited her fossil shop.
She even guided Richard Owen on a fossil-hunting tour of the Blue Lias, and in 1844 the King of Saxony stopped by her shop.
While these scientists often relied on Mary's fossils and knowledge in their publications, her name was frequently left out.
There were exceptions, and a few naturalists would regularly give her credit. One person is Louis Agassiz, a leading naturalist who visited her in Lyme Regis.
He named a fossil fish after Elizabeth Philpot, Eugnathus philpotiae, and two specimens after her: Acrodus anningiae and Belenostomus anningiae.
Geologists Charlotte Murchison and her husband Sir Roderick Murchison also recognized Mary's expertise, taking a keen interest in the fossils she uncovered and helping
to highlight the importance of her contributions to the growing field of paleontology.
Mary also inspired the geologist Henry De la Beche, also a friend of hers, to create his famous diorama Duria Antiquior: A More Ancient Dorset.
Based on fossils she discovered, this was the first reconstruction of prehistoric life and helped launch a new genre now known as paleoart.
The painting was widely circulated in scientific circles, and De la Beche sold prints to raise funds for Mary Anning.
Because of her groundbreaking discoveries and deep knowledge,
William Buckland persuaded the British Association for the Advancement of Science in the late 1830s to award Mary a small annual stipend to support her fossil hunting.
Duria Antiquior, a more ancient Dorset, was a watercolor painted in 1830 by Henry De la Beche. This is the first ever a pictorial representation of prehistoric life. It coined an entirely new genra called Paleoart. The painting is based from fossils found by Mary Anning around Lyme Regis. The painting was widely used in scientific circles and prints were sold by Henry to raise money for Mary Anning. In the image one can find a number of Mary Annings fossils, including an ichthyosaur eating a plesiosaur, a plesiosaur eating a pterosaur, a sea turtle eating a belemnite, a crocodile, and ammonites just laying around (I suppose he didn't know how to interpret those). (Pubic Domain)
Death
Mary Anning never married, perhaps because her life was so deeply devoted to fossil hunting.
She formed many close friendships and corresponded with other women interested in science, women whose contributions were often overlooked by the male-dominated scientific community.
At the same time, she interacted with leading men in geology and paleontology, who recognized her expertise and sought her knowledge.
In 1845, Mary was diagnosed with breast cancer. The Geological Society paid for her treatment, but sadly, she passed away in 1847.
She was buried at the Lyme Regis Parish Church, and in recognition of her contributions, the Geological Society funded and dedicated a large stained-glass window in her honor.
Mary Anning is now celebrated as one of the pioneering women in paleontology.
Her discoveries revealed the diversity and complexity of life long before humans, that animals completely different from today existed in the past and went extinct.
She helped shape the emerging science of paleontology, influencing generations of scientists to come.
Lyme Regis Today
Today, unlike the stigma in the United States, the United Kingdom encourages safe and responsible amateur fossil collecting.
On a typical summer day, visitors can be seen exploring the same beaches Mary Anning walked over 200 years ago, searching for fossils.
Lyme Regis remains a lively seaside town, with numerous fossil shops displaying some of the most remarkable specimens from the Blue Lias and continuing
to inspire curiosity about Earth's ancient past.
Lyme Regis, Dorset. Lyme Regis is a popular seaside town surrounded by cliffs containing the Blue Lias Formation which is a prime Jurassic fossil hunting location. The Golden Cap near Charmouth is in the background. Notice the ammmonite light poles. Image by: Rictor Norton & David Allen (CC-by-2.0).
Mary Anning Book:
The article you've just read offers only a brief glimpse into Mary Anning's life. Her story is far richer, more fascinating, and more complex than any short overview can capture. She lived during a time of great change, as the world shifted from the era of gentleman naturalists to the emergence of paleontology as a formal science. Mary was not alone in her work, she knew and corresponded with other pioneering women geologists and early paleontologists. Her discoveries, friendships, and perseverance reveal a world of science, society, and personal determination that shaped the study of the ancient past. To truly appreciate Mary Anning's remarkable story, I invite you to explore my book, which explores the geology, paleontology, and social context behind her life and legacy:
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Additional Images:
This is the second nearly complete Plesiosaur Mary Annning found. It's a juvenile of a species called Plesiosaurus macrocephalus. This cast is on display at the Museum national d'histoire naturelle, Paris. Credit: FunkMonk (CC-by-SA-3.0)
This is a fossilized ink sac found by Mary Anning. It's most likely from a belemnite. Mary Anning would mix fossil ink with water to reconstitute it. She then used the fossil belemnite ink to make drawing of the fossils. This is specimen number PI OR 14380 at the Natural History Museum, London. Image from the digitized collection of the British Museum - Credit: The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London (CC-by-4.0).
These are drawings of belemnites by Mary Anning. This is from one of the plates in Miller J.S. "Observations on belemnites," Transactions of the Geological Society of London, vol.2 1822. Housed at the British Museum of Natural History.
This is part of a wall at the British Natural History Museum, London. This hall of "marine reptiles" contains 100's of ichthyosaur and plesiosaur specimens, many of which were collected by Mary Anning.
There are more fossils than just marine reptiles and cephalopods at Lyme Regis. Here is a Brittle star that Mary Anning found in 1824. It's a Palaeocoma milleri from the Blue Lias of Lyme Regis. This is specimen number PI OR 14399 at the Natural History Museum, London. Image from the digitized collection of the British Museum - Credit: The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London (CC-by-4.0).
A large ammonite from the Blue Lias on display at the Lyme Regis Museum. Image by: Kmtextor. (CC-by-4.0)
This is an intriguing image titled "The Geologists, Chudleigh, Devon" by William Henry Fox Talbot c. from 1843. Some people refer to the woman in the image as Mary Anning, however, it is not. The image is not taken at Lyme Regis and Talbot did not correspond with Mary Anning. A research paper about this image suggests Talbot used a couple of his friends as props for the photo. Image from the National Media Museum, Bradford, U.K. The research paper about this image can be found here: M.A. Taylor and S. Levitt 2015.
Vertebrate fauna of the Charmouth Mudstone, Lias Group of England, UK. This shows the typical marine vertebrates found in the layers. Notice the Ichthyosaurus at the top left, it's named after Mary Anning. Also, there is one land dinosaur in the fauna. A news article about this interesting dinosaur is here. Image by: Nobu Tamura (CC BY-SA 2.0).
A Long Exposure of Lyme Regis, Dorset. Lyme Regis is surrounded by cliffs containing the Blue Lias Formation which is a prime Jurassic fossil hunting location. Image by: Lies Thru a Lens (CC-by-4.0). )
Ammonite Fossils by Fossilera
