Amazing Facts About Mary Anning – The First Female Paleontologist

She Started Excavating Fossils At The Age Of 6

#30 She Started Excavating Fossils At The Age Of 6

Mary Anning was born in Lyme Regis, in Dorset, England, to Molly and Richard Anning. Mary Anning was among the two surviving children out of ten that the couple had. 

Her parents were Dissenters, which are modern Congregationalists. It made them religious outcasts from the Church of England followers.

Living a poor life, Mary’s father was a cabinetmaker who also sold fossils as souvenirs to tourists who visited Lyme Regis.

Her father soon took to selling small fossils seriously by becoming a beachcomber. Subsequently, Mary followed her father for fossil hunting by the time she was six years old.

Fossil hunting with her father honed Mary’s keen interest in fossil science from a very young age which also led to her first significant discovery of Ichthyosaurs at the age of twelve!

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