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Mary Anning

Born May 21, 1799
Lyme Regis, England
Died March 9, 1847
Lyme Regis, England
Occupation Fossil collector and paleontologist
Parents Richard and Mary Anning

Mary Anning (May 21, 1799 – March 9, 1847) was an early British fossil collector and paleontologist. Events 878 - Syracuse Italy is captured by the Muslim sultan of Sicily. Year 1799 ( MDCCXCIX) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Lyme Regis (ˌlaɪmˈriːdʒɪs is a coastal town in West Dorset, England, situated 25 Miles west of Dorchester and east of Exeter Events 590 - Bahram Chobin is crowned as king Barham VI of Persia. Year 1847 ( MDCCCXLVII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common FOSSIL is a standard protocol for allowing serial communication for Telecommunications programs under the DOS Operating system. Palaeontology redirects here For the Scientific journal, see Palaeontology (journal. Events 878 - Syracuse Italy is captured by the Muslim sultan of Sicily. Year 1799 ( MDCCXCIX) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Events 590 - Bahram Chobin is crowned as king Barham VI of Persia. Year 1847 ( MDCCCXLVII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common FOSSIL is a standard protocol for allowing serial communication for Telecommunications programs under the DOS Operating system. Palaeontology redirects here For the Scientific journal, see Palaeontology (journal.

Contents

Early life

Born in the coastal southern English town of Lyme Regis in Dorset,[1] Mary Anning was marked out for an unusual life at the age of 15 months when in 1800 a lightning strike in the village caught four people in the open. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland Lyme Regis (ˌlaɪmˈriːdʒɪs is a coastal town in West Dorset, England, situated 25 Miles west of Dorchester and east of Exeter Dorset ( (or archaically, Dorsetshire) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast Three died but Mary survived.

Mary's father Richard was a cabinet maker who supplemented his income by mining the coastal cliff-side fossil beds near Lyme Regis, then selling his finds to tourists. Cabinet making is the practice of utilizing various Woodworking skills to create cabinets shelving and Furniture. Richard Anning moved to Lyme from Colyton in Devon. Aged 27 he was in Blandford, where he married Mary Moore on 8 August 1793. Returning to Lyme, the couple lived in a house built on the town’s bridge, and attended the local Congregational Church, where their children were baptised. Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently Soon after their marriage a daughter Mary was born, she was followed by a second daughter, Martha, who died almost at once, then by a son Joseph, in 1796.

A second son Henry died as an infant early in 1798. Horror struck towards the end of the year when the eldest child Mary was burned to death at home, either sitting to close to the fire, or falling into it. When another daughter was born the following May, she was given the name of her dead sister, Mary. It was she who survived the lightning strike in 1800. At least four further children followed: Henry, 1801; Percival, 1803; Elizabeth, 1804; and Richard, 1809. All died within a couple of years of birth, leaving only two surviving children, Joseph and Mary, when their father Richard died in 1810, aged just 44. When he died of tuberculosis the Anning family was left without support. Tuberculosis (abbreviated as TB for tubercle bacillus or T u' b' erculosis Bacillus --> is a common Mary and her brother Joseph began collecting fossils full-time in an effort to earn some income.

Fossil collecting was in vogue in the late 18th century and early 19th century, at first as a pastime akin to stamp collecting but gradually transforming into a science as the importance of fossils to geology and biology became understood. The 18th century lasted from 1701 to 1800 in the Gregorian calendar, in accordance with the Anno Domini / Common Era numbering system The 19th century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1801 and ended on December 31, 1900, according to the Gregorian calendar Geology (from Greek γη gê, "earth" and λόγος Logos, "speech" lit Foundations of modern biology There are five unifying principles Anning catered to the commercial side of the field, selling her finds. She soon forged relationships within the scientific community, whose passion for fossils grew to be a major source of income for her.

Mary Anning unearthed this plesiosaur — the first to be discovered — in 1821.
Mary Anning unearthed this plesiosaur — the first to be discovered — in 1821.

The cause of this connection was one of Anning's first discoveries, the skeleton of an ichthyosaur, in 1811, a few months after her father's death. Ichthyosaurs ( Greek for 'fish lizard' - ιχθυς / ichthyos meaning 'fish' and σαυρος / sauros meaning 'lizard' were giant Her brother had discovered the skull of what appeared to be a large crocodile a year earlier. The rest of the skeleton was not to be found at first, but Mary located it after a storm scoured away a portion of the cliff containing it. This was the first complete skeleton of an ichthyosaur ever discovered, though not the first ichthyosaur fossil ever, as the genus had been described in 1699 from fragments discovered in Wales. Nevertheless, it was an important find, and was soon described in the Transactions of the Royal Society. The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, or Phil Trans Anning was 12 years old at the time of her discovery. She went on to find two other distinct species of Ichthyosaur.

As her reputation grew, Anning came to the attention of Thomas Birch, a wealthy fossil collector. Thomas Birch ( November 23, 1705 – January 9, 1766) English Historian, son of Joseph Birch a coffee-mill maker was Disturbed by the poverty of Mary and her family he arranged for the sale of his own fossil collection, the proceeds of which (some £400) were given to the Annings. Put on a sure (if somewhat austere) financial footing for the first time in a decade, Mary carried on with her fossil collecting even after her brother gained employment as an upholsterer. Upholstery is the work of providing Furniture, especially seats with Padding, springs Webbing, and fabric or Leather

Her next major discovery was a real first, the first-ever skeleton of a plesiosaur in 1821. Plesiosaurs (ˈpliːziəˌsɔɹ ( Greek: plesios/πλησιος meaning 'near' or 'close to' and sauros/σαυρος meaning The fossil she found was subsequently described, by William Conybeare as Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus and is the type specimen (holotype) of the species, which itself is the type species of the genus. William Daniel Conybeare FRS ( 7 June, 1787 - 12 August, 1857) dean of Llandaff, one of the most distinguished of English In biology a type is that which fixes a name to a Taxon. Depending on the nomenclature code which is applied to the organism in question a type may be a specimen A holotype is one of several possible Biological types A type is what fixes a name to a Taxon. She found an 'unrivalled specimen' of Dapedium politum, a ray-finned fish, as described in 1828. Dapedium (aka Dapedius or Moonfish) is an Extinct species of Enamel-scaled fish. She discovered an important fossil of a pterosaur, a Pterodactylus macronyx (later renamed by Richard Owen Dimorphodon macronyx), the first found outside Germany and thought to be the first complete skeleton. For other meanings see Pterodactyl (disambiguation. Pterosaurs (ˈtɛrəsɔr from the Greek πτερόσαυρος pterosauros Sir Richard Owen KCB ( Lancaster, July 20 1804 &ndash December 18 1892) was an English Biologist Dimorphodon daiˈmɔː(rfədɑn ("Two-form Teeth" was a genus of medium-sized (wing span 1

Those were the three finds that made her mark on history, but she continued collecting for the remainder of her life, making numerous other contributions to early paleontology. In her late thirties she was granted an annuity by the British Association for the Advancement of Science in return for her efforts. An annuity contract is a Financial product typically offered by a Financial institution, that may accumulate value and take a current value and pay it out over Anning died at the age of 47, of breast cancer. Breast cancer is a Cancer that starts in the cells of the Breast in women and men A few months earlier she had been made an honorary member of the Geological Society of London despite being ineligible for regular membership due to the sexist mores of the time. The Geological Society of London is a Learned society based in the United Kingdom with the aim of "investigating the mineral structure of the Earth" Sexism is the belief or attitude that one Gender or Sex is inferior to or less valuable than the other and can also refer to a Hatred or distrust towards Mores (ˈmɔːreɪz are norms or customs Mores derive from the established practices of a society rather than its written Laws.

Impact

Mary Anning's Window, St Michael's Church
Mary Anning's Window, St Michael's Church
Gravestone of Mary Anning and her brother, Joseph
Gravestone of Mary Anning and her brother, Joseph

Taken all together, Mary Anning's discoveries became key pieces of evidence for extinction. Until her time it was widely believed that animals did not become extinct; any oddities found were explained away as still living somewhere in an unexplored region of the earth. The bizarre nature of the fossils found by Anning struck a heavy blow against this argument, and set the stage for real understanding of life in earlier geologic ages.

For a time after her death, Mary dropped into obscurity but, in recent decades, she has been rediscovered After her death, a eulogy was read at the Geological Society, 'some members' of which subsequently contributed to a stained-glass window to her memory, in the parish church of St Michael the Archangel, the Society having failed to elect her to membership during her lifetime, possibly as a result of latter-day ‘genderism’. Lyme Regis (ˌlaɪmˈriːdʒɪs is a coastal town in West Dorset, England, situated 25 Miles west of Dorchester and east of Exeter Sexism is the belief or attitude that one Gender or Sex is inferior to or less valuable than the other and can also refer to a Hatred or distrust towards The inscription reads: "This window is sacred to the memory of Mary Anning of this parish, who died 9 March AD 1847 and is erected by the vicar and some members of the Geological Society of London in commemoration of her usefulness in furthering the science of geology, as also of her benevolence of heart and integrity of life. " (It depicts the corporal works of mercy, i. The Works of Mercy or Acts of Mercy are actions and practices which the Roman Catholic Church considers expectations to be fulfilled by believers and which are also e. feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless visiting prisoners and visiting the sick. )

Mary Anning is believed to be the source of the old tongue-twister, "She sells sea shells by the sea shore. A tongue-twister is a phrase that is designed to be difficult to articulate properly "

In 2005, a Mary Anning 'facsimile' was created at the Natural History Museum as one of a number of notable gallery characters to patrol its displays. The Natural History Museum is one of three large Museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London (the others are the Science Museum She is thus among other luminaries including Carl Linnaeus, Dorothea Bate, and William Smith. Carl Linnaeus (Latinized as Carolus Linnaeus, also known after his ennoblement as, May 23 new style (13 May old style 1707 who laid the foundations for Dorothea Minola Alice Bate FGS ( 8 November 1878 – 13 January 1951) also known as Dorothy Bate, was a British William Smith ( March 23 1769 &ndash August 28 1839) was an English Geologist, credited with creating the first nationwide [2]

Notes

  1. ^ Blue plaque marking Mary Anning's birthplace.
  2. ^ Review by Miles Russell of Discovering Dorothea by Karolyn Shindler at ucl. ac. uk (accessed 23 November 2007)

Bibliography

See also

Further reading

External links


Persondata
NAME Anning, Mary
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Geologist, paleontologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 21, 1799
PLACE OF BIRTH Lyme Regis, England
DATE OF DEATH March 9, 1847
PLACE OF DEATH Lyme Regis, England
A geologist is a contributor to the Science of Geology, studying the physical structure and processes of the Earth and planets of the solar system Palaeontology redirects here For the Scientific journal, see Palaeontology (journal. Events 878 - Syracuse Italy is captured by the Muslim sultan of Sicily. Year 1799 ( MDCCXCIX) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Lyme Regis (ˌlaɪmˈriːdʒɪs is a coastal town in West Dorset, England, situated 25 Miles west of Dorchester and east of Exeter Events 590 - Bahram Chobin is crowned as king Barham VI of Persia. Year 1847 ( MDCCCXLVII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common
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