tour 25 of 25
Enlightenment: The Natural World
Skull and lower jaw of an ichthyosaur
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description of this object, written especially
for blind and partially sighted visitors, follow this link:
Audio
description (2m 34s) (mp3 format, 1.76 MB). To
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This large skull was
collected by Mary Anning (1799-1847), one of the most famous fossil
finders of her day. It is part of the skull and lower jaw of an
ichthyosaur
(Ichthyosaurus
platyodon).
Mary
Anning's family had earned a living for years by gathering
fossils on the shore at Lyme Regis in Dorset to sell to collectors.
Mary learned about the fossils from her parents, Richard and Mary
(‘Molly') Anning, although there is a story that her flair
resulted from being struck by lightning when she was one year old.
This apparently changed her from a 'dull' to a
'lively'
child.
Despite the lack of
a formal education, Mary Anning became an expert on the fossils she
found, and the most eminent geologists of the day often sought her
advice. In the 1820s she became the first person in Britain to find
complete specimens of an ichthyosaur, a
plesiosaur
and a
pterodactyl.
The
specimens that Anning collected can still be found in museums
throughout Britain. The British Museum purchased this example
shortly after Anning discovered it.