The female fossil hunter who changed paleontology

Age just 12, this Dorset-based female fossil hunter made a groundbreaking discovery (pardon the pun).

But because of her gender and class, she was often excluded from societies and her discoveries were listed as “anonymous”. She was only formally recognised posthoumously.

A childhood shaped by rocks

Mary Anning was born in 1799 in Lyme Regis, a small coastal town in Dorset, where the crumbling Jurassic cliffs regularly expose ancient fossils after storms.

Her father, a carpenter, also collected curiosities to sell to tourists, and from an early age Mary joined him on fossil hunts.

The family was poor, and after her father died in 1810, Mary began to sell fossils to help support her mother and siblings.

The stretch of coastline she searched — now part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site — held layers of Blue Lias shale rich in prehistoric life.

Her early finds included ammonites and belemnites, but it wasn’t long before she uncovered something far more significant.

The discovery that shook the scientific world

By Fishboy86164577 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=112690921

At just 12 years old, Mary uncovered the first complete Ichthyosaur skeleton ever recorded — a 5.2-metre-long marine reptile.

This was followed by the first two nearly complete Plesiosaur skeletons and later a flying reptile, the Pterosaur, all from the cliffs surrounding her hometown.

At the time, these finds were explosive.

They challenged dominant religious and scientific beliefs about the age of the Earth and the fixity of species. Mary had no formal education, but her attention to detail and understanding of anatomy impressed leading naturalists.

Yet as a working-class woman in 19th-century England, she was excluded from scientific institutions.

Her name was often omitted from the official records, with men frequently taking credit for her discoveries.

Selling ‘curios’ to survive

Mary never made much money, though her fossil shop in Lyme Regis — located on what’s now called Broad Street — became known among scientists and collectors across Europe.

She corresponded with geologists and palaeontologists, including Henry De la Beche and Richard Owen, who would later found the Natural History Museum in London.

Her finds ended up in major museums and private collections, but the financial rewards mostly passed her by.

It wasn’t until years later that her role in founding modern palaeontology began to be properly acknowledged.

The legacy left in stone

Mary Anning died of breast cancer in 1847, aged 47. A window in Lyme Regis Parish Church was dedicated to her memory, paid for by the Geological Society – which hadn’t admitted women during her lifetime.

In 2010, the Royal Society named her among the ten British women who have most influenced the history of science.

A blue plaque now marks the site of her former home, and a statue of Mary and her dog Tray was unveiled on the Lyme Regis seafront in 2022 after a community-led campaign.

Today, schoolchildren are taught her name alongside Darwin and Newton.

She helped lay the foundations for evolutionary biology and the understanding of extinction, not through lectures or papers, but through patient work with hammer and chisel on a windswept shoreline.

Where to follow in her footsteps

• Lyme Regis Museum sits on the site of her former home and shop, with displays dedicated to her life and discoveries.
• The ammonite pavement at Monmouth Beach can be reached on foot at low tide and is a striking example of the fossil beds she searched daily.
• Guided fossil walks run year-round, led by trained geologists who teach the same techniques Mary would have used two centuries ago.
• The Natural History Museum in London still holds specimens found by Mary, many labelled simply as “anonymous” in their day.