Mary Anning: the princess of Palaeontology

Mary Anning was born in a little town in South West England in the 18th Century. Her father Richard Anning was a carpenter. When Mary was about a year old, she survived a major lightning strike that killed the woman who was carrying her. This ‘miraculous escape’ soon made her famous in her little town.

This was an era when common people, mostly children, were dying of diseases such as smallpox and measles. So Mary and her brother Joseph growing into their teenage years was yet another miracle for many in the town. Though it was a rare thing back then, Mary attended the Congregationalist Sunday school, where she learned to read and write.

A curio incident

Lyme Regis, the place where Mary lived with her family, was a coastal tourist spot. To augment their income, the local people in the town - including Mary’s parents - would collect fossils and sell them as curios to visiting tourists. Often, Mary and Joseph would also accompany their dad to collect them.

This is what sparked Mary’s interest in the field. In 1826, Mary set up a shop in front of her home called the Anning’s Fossil Depot. By then, the family was well known for collecting exquisite pieces and Mary for her knowledge about them. Not just tourists, even some geologists from different parts of the world started visiting her shop.

Invisible barrier

The gender bias in Britain was much worse back then. Women did not have the right to vote, own property, or even attend a university. So being a part of an elite group such as the Geological Society of London was out of question for Mary. Many of her important discoveries, therefore, went unrecorded. Some believe they were deliberately sidelined by her male peers.

It is also said that many papers to which Mary contributed did not give her due credit.

While some of her peers, like Henry De la Beche and Louis Agassiz, did credit and stand with her in times of need, the society in the larger span of things often conveniently forgot her contributions until much later in her life.

Discoveries left behind

One of the first discoveries Mary made was to correctly identify the Ichthyosaur. She and her brother discovered a massive skeleton of the same in 1811, which later became the first scientifically recognised Ichthyosaur. Then, in 1823, she discovered the first ever complete Plesiosaur skeleton, which was followed by a detailed Plesiosaurus macrocephalus in 1830, confirming the existence of the long-necked marine reptile.

In between, she also discovered a partial skeleton of Dimorphodon (it was the very first pterosaur fossil found outside of Germany) and a rare transitional fish fossil called Squaloraja, which provided evidence of evolutionary links between modern sharks and rays. Mary was also one of the pioneers in the study of coprolites (literally fossilised faeces).

In fact, her discoveries are said to be the inspiration behind ‘Duria Antiquior – A More Ancient Dorset’ (1830) by Henry De la Beche, the first painting showing prehistoric life based on fossil evidence. Many of her other discoveries have often gotten lost in time due to the patriarchal nature of the field and the lack of written proof.

A brilliant mind, time and time again disappointed by the systemic discrimination she had to face, Mary’s contributions were only slightly applauded posthumously after 1847. It was recently in the 20th and 21st Centuries that people eventually started appreciating her contributions.