Mary Anning

Mary Anning (1799- 1847) was one of the earliest palaeontologists ever. She lived in Lyme Regis as a child, and was struck by lightning when she was a baby. Her father once took her to the edge of some cliffs at Lyme Regis, and got some rocks as a present.

Childlife
Mary Anning was bullied as a child; her mum disliked her, the children disliked her. She had a brother, Joseph Anning. Soon her father died, and she was shown fossils. Her dog assisted her in finding fossilised bones. Once they lost the dog, but he was found in a graveyard. She was growing poorer, so she made some money by selling small fossils, which made her mother proud.

Ichthyosaurus
As a child, she found a full skeleton of Ichthyosaurus with her brother Joseph. Everyone congratulated her as a part of the dinosaur was found earlier. This dinosaur is related to Dearcmhara, an ichthyosaur from Scotland. This dinosaur was a species of Temnodontosaurus.

More fossils
Mary Anning found a plesiosaur in 1823, and later a pterosaur called Dimorphodon.

She found many of these including Temnodontosaurus platyodon. Later she found the Plesiosaurus and in 1829, the Squaloraja,a fossil fish.

Death
Mary Anning died of breast cancer in 1847.