The Fossil Hunter- Mary Anning
When I was 7, my aunt took me to a newly opened private museum that opened near my house. I was especially excited because it was my first time visiting a museum, and this one was special because it was a museum specifically devoted to fossils. It was the personal collection of a doctor who had been collecting fossils all his life, and after he retired, he wanted to share some of his most remarkable finds and acquisitions with the public. Admittedly, I didn’t really understand what a museum was, and I was also unclear about ‘fossils,’ but I was going to have a chance to spend the day with my aunt, and that was good enough for me.
I still remember my first impression the moment we walked through the museum doors. I saw glass cases that seemed to be full of broken pieces of rocks, with larger pieces mounted on walls. I can’t honestly say that I fully appreciated what I was looking at. When my aunt tried to explain how old some of the collection was, my young mind had a hard time grasping the concept of anything that old. My great grandmother at 85 seemed positively ancient, nevermind something that was over a million years old. Over the next several years, I enjoyed visiting the museum for its cool and dim atmosphere. Unfortunately, the museum is now closed, but I still remember the secrets and wonders it held behind its bland doors. Now, why am I going on and on about fossils you may ask. Today, I wanted to write about Mary Anning, who was considered one of the world’s leading fossil hunters.
Mary was born in Lyme Regis, England in 1799. Lyme Regis is also known as the Jurassic Coast because of the abundance of fossils found there. Her father was a cabinet maker and amateur fossil collector, who often took Mary and her brother along on his fossil hunts. When Mary was 10, her father suddenly died leaving them destitute. Mary and her mother and brother, all took to collecting fossils to sell to collectors to bring in some much-needed income. Though the family was too poor for Mary to attend school, she taught herself how to read and write. Though still a child, armed with intelligence and a quick eye, Mary was the first to realize the importance of the remarkable fossil her brother uncovered embedded in the cliffs of Lyme Regis in 1810. She excavated and drew the first known Ichthyosaur. At this time, there was no recognized study of dinosaurs. In fact, the term ‘Dinosaur’ would not be coined until 1842 by another Brit, Richard Owen. Mary, however, recognized the importance of her specimen. At first, the scientific community thought the Ichthyosaur was a crocodile. Later, it was assumed to be an unrecognizable species from foreign lands. This was a common conception at the time which explained discoveries of never seen before creatures. Mary’s fossil was eventually named Ichthyosaur, literally translated as ‘fish lizard’. They were like the dolphins of the Mesozoic Era, a time span 252–66 million years ago.
Her most important find, however, came in 1824, when she was the first to uncover a completely intact fossil of a Plesiosaurus- a long-necked marine reptile- which lived 215–80 million years ago. Her find garnered the attention of world-famous zoologists, geologists, and paleontologists because of its large size and pristine condition. England and most of Europe in the early 1800s were predominantly Christian, and still deeply invested in the stories of creation as outlined in Genesis. Mary’s fossils would later stir up questions of how old the earth actually was, and eventually help back up the claims of extinction and evolution put forth by Charles Darwin.
In spite of her remarkable finds, Mary was not given instant recognition or credit in the scientific community. In fact, many of her important findings like the Ichthyosaur were eventually bought by male scientists who cleaned, prepared and wrote about ‘their’ findings in scientific journals. It was they who claimed and received the accolade for Mary’s find as they neglected to give her the proper credit she rightly deserved. The sad reality is that many of the fossils which Mary discovered are now housed in various museums around the world, without being credited or associated with her.
Mary died at the age of 47 of breast cancer. However, before her death, many of her peers eventually recognized her contribution to the scientific community. Nowadays, Mary is considered one of the most important women in science for her contribution to various branches of science like Paleontology, Geology, Zoology and Evolution/ Biology. I hope to one day visit the Natural History Museum in London, where Mary’s fossils are the star attraction of their Fossil Marine Reptile Gallery and pay homage to a remarkable woman ahead of her time.
