Mary Anning Facts
Mary Anning Facts
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| Interesting Mary Anning Facts: |
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| Mary Anning was born in Lyme Regis, England to a cabinet maker who scoured the cliffs for fossils to sell to tourists. |
| Although her family was very poor, she learned to read and write at a Congregationalist Sunday school where her family were members. |
| Lyme Regis was a popular vacation destination and the local population had mined the cliffs for curios to sell to the tourists. |
| The coastal cliffs were part of a geological formation known as the Blue Lias and is made of layers of limestone and shale. |
| It is one of England's richest fossil beds however the cliffs are unstable and dangerous. |
| In 1811 Mary and her brother, Joseph, found a 17 foot ichthyosaur skeleton which they sold for 23 pounds. |
| Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas James Birch was a steady and important customer and it was he who made the family famous when he gave the skeleton to William Bullock for display in London. |
| On December 10, 1823 she found the first complete Plesiosaurus and in 1828 the first pterosaur. |
| Although self-taught she became a respected paleontologist and her technical illustrations were very detailed and accurate. |
| In 1826 money from sale of her fossils allowed her to open a shop, Anning's Fossil Depot, which was visited by important geologists from Europe and New York. |
| In 1839 she wrote to the Magazine of Natural History to question the claim it made of the discovery of a new genus and the magazine printed an extract of her letter. |
| Her fame was such that William Buckland, geology lecturer at Oxford, frequently hunted fossils with her. |
| She shared with him the important scientific discovery that the strange bezoar stones were the really fossilized feces of dinosaurs. |
| Henry De la Beche was one of Britain's leading geologists and a childhood friend of Anning. |
| Thanks to her friend, William Buckland, the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the British government recognized her great contributions and awarded her a civil list pension in the amount of 25 pounds a year. |
| After her death from breast cancer, the president of the Geological Society gave a eulogy at the society meeting which was the first time a eulogy was given for a woman. |
| In 2009 the Royal Society included Anning in its list of ten British women who have most influenced the history of science. |
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