Mary Anning

By: Frances

Welcome, today i'm going to tell you and maybe show you all about Mary Anning, and the fossils she found! Did you know that even dinosaur hair can be preserved and harded and considered a fossil! Very cool, right? A fossil also remains evidence of a once living dino on earth!


And now, we will talk about Mary Anning. Mary was an unlikely paleontologist, especially unlikely for England in the early 1800's. Mary and her brother worked side, to side along the seaside cliffs near their home, their father had taught them to sopt treasures in the layers of limestone and shale. What Mary didn't have was education, Mary also had the time nor the money for school, selling the fossils she'd collected helped her family have food on the table. One fossil at a time. One meal at a time. It was Mary's brother who found a skull in the cliff side. he worked a little, but gave up. mary took over. First, she unearths vertebrae. Next ribs. Then flippers, and finally a long tail. Grand and educated men set out to identify Mary's creature. Then men eventually named this discovery "Ichthyosaur" and proudly claimed their new knowledge in aricles, books, and sermons. Mary copied the illustrations to learn the technique of cataloging bones and reporting discoveries. She taught herself anotomy by disecting squid and cuttlefish on her kitchen table, very interesting, right? Little by little, lesson by lesson, an uneducated girl from a poor family becoming a scientist. More rich folks, scientists, collectors, and geoligists purchased mary's fossils and brought them to museums and universities to be studied and displayed. One bone led to another. and another. And another! This is no Ichthyosaur! It had a long neck, and very long neck, A tiny head, and paddles. Mary worked for months to release this odd fossil from the rocky seaside cliffs, the men debated a long time, and finally concluded that Mary's bones were from one very real, very new species. They named it "Plesiosaur" Mary kept learning on her own.


Next, she discovered a diamond shaped tail. Claws and a beak and wings! She had discovered on of the first "pterosaurs". Mary's Ichthyosaurs, Plesiosaur, and now Pterosaur suddenly inspired new theories about life on earth long ago. These fossils and prehistoric life. They were forming a brand new science paleontology. But two-hundred years later, Mary Anning is reconized as the first paleontologist. One fossil at a time, ond discovery at a time.


I hope you are enjoying this very cool learning about Mary Anning! Mary found and sold fossilized "seashells", including many ammonites, one of which she sold for enough money to feed her family for a whole week. But her more important discoveries were one of the fossils' of the larger prehistoric creatures, beginning with the Ichthyosaur. The cliffs of the Jurassic seashore, where Mary lived, were underwater when prehistoric creatures populated the earth two hundred million years ago. Ichthyosaur means "fish lizard" by the way. The word "dinosaur" hav'ent been invented yet. The men had made an anouncement that shocked the world, Mary's finds wasn't just old. It was a million years old! Their declaration shattered the commonly held beleif that the earth was only six thousand years old. Also, no one had realized that a species could become extinct until they studied the remains of a creature that no longer walked the earth. Over the years Mary also found many odd, dark, lumpy pebbles inside skeletons. She examined them. Reread her notes. Studied her drawings. Mary figured out what they were! Except it was something a lady should'nt talk about.... She proclaimed theses stones, known as bezoars, were actually fossilized poop! Geoligisted sneered. Scientists scoffed.

Then they took a closer look, and realized she was right! Mary's discovery helped scholars learn more about what ancient creatures are. She also found many long, thin, cone-shaped fossil-shaped fossils. Ordinary, at least on the outside. Curious, she cut one open. Tucked inside was a small pocket filled with a thick, dark substance. Mary was even more curious now! Adding a few drops of water turned the substance into....ink! Mary's discovery proved that ancient aquatic creatures squirted ink to hide themselves from hungry predators! When Mary was twenty-four, she made another interesting discovery. This creature didn't have legs or flippers, it had wings! She had unearthed an flying reptile called a pterosaur. Scientists all over the world were talking about Mary's discoveries. Even though Mary could identify a species from a single bone and later could rebuild the entire skeleton like a jigsaw puzzle, she couldn't join the Geological society of Londen. Women were not allowed. She couldn't attend lectures or teach university classes. Or even take classes! Just like long-buried fossils, Mary's achievements have slowly been uncovered and shared with the world.


Her daring discoveries helped form Paleontology- the branch of geology that uses fossils to study prehistoric life. And she did it all with a homemade hammer, a chisel, and a never-ending quest to fearlessly keep exploring, and learning. My favorite thing to talk about is the fossils she found. I hope you enjoyed this very cool journey about Mary Anning!

Sources:

Dinosaur lady, by Linda Skeers.

She sells Seashells, by Heidi E.Y Stemple