Amazing Facts About Mary Anning – The First Female Paleontologist

She Spearheaded The Study Of Coprolites

#21 She Spearheaded The Study Of Coprolites

Apart from fossil finds of marine reptiles, Mary Anning had also pioneered the study of coprolites which are fossilized feces.

These are called trace fossils instead of the body fossils that give the anatomy of the extinct species.

Mary Anning also noticed odd-shaped fossils, ‘bezoar stones,’ which would contain fossilized fish scales and bones inside. It led her to suspect that these stones were feces of the fossils.

Anning had discovered several belemnite fossils that would contain dried ink.

After closely analyzing the ink chambers, Mary noted the similarity between it and the squid and cuttlefish’s ink sacs.

William Buckland produced these conclusions to Geological Society giving due credit to Anning for her talent to discover and pioneer the animal behavior study.

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