You’ve all probably heard or stumbled over the famous tongue twister...
Sea shells... no. she sells she's... oh.
She sells seashells by the seashore.
She shells...
You get it.
Those six words tell a little known story about the early days of paleontology and one
of its most important and influential participants; Mary Anning.
But, first, let’s start here, with “the seashore.”
This seashore is actually a 95 mile stretch of shoreline in Dorset County, UK, that is
impressively nicknamed The Jurassic Coast.
It’s the only place in the world that shows a complete 185 million year slice of history
as seen in the layers of its towering cliffs.
The rocks and beaches are full of fossils and remains not only from the Jurassic, but
also the Triassic and Cretaceous.
And it was here, in the early 19th century, where we started to realize that not only
was there such a thing as “millions of years ago,” but that once upon a time… there
were such things as dinosaurs.
And one of the people who helped us figure this out is the “she” in this tongue twister.
Mary Anning was born and raised in the Dorset area, and from an early age she collected
and sold fossils, that, yes, were kind of like seashells.
After her father died when Mary was just 10 years old, she continued to help support her
family by finding, identifying and selling fossils to collectors and tourists.
But in doing so, she started finding things that changed the way we look at the history
of our planet.
Before the age of 13, Mary unearthed one of the first ichthyosaur skeletons ever discovered.
She also found the first complete plesiosaur, the first pterosaur found outside of Germany,
and helped first identify fossilized dino poop which is now called coprolite.
A lot of these discoveries made people question the world they knew.
It gave rise to the idea of extinctions; these giant reptiles obviously existed at one time,
but now don’t.
That was a new concept.
Basically, because of what she found and how that influenced our understanding of science,
it’s safe to say that Mary is one of history’s best and most important fossil hunters.
But, even though Mary Anning was one the great science minds of her time, she faced a lot
of challenges as a woman in the 19th century who was not affluent nor formally educated.
She was embraced by many members of the science community, including prominent professors,
lecturers, geologists, naturalists, paleontologists and anatomists, but was still left on the
outside looking in.
Women were not allowed to attend university, join many prominent science organizations,
hold office or vote.
So, it comes as no surprise that she was never able to publish her findings and was not always
properly credited with her discoveries.
And without proper documentation, history has a tendency to forget.
Which is why, today, one of the only ways people around the world are familiar with
Mary Anning and her work is a tongue twister that just doesn’t tell the whole story.
So maybe instead we should be teaching our children about Mary, voted one of the 10 most
important British woman scientists of all time, by saying this three times fast:
Anning unearths ichthyosaurs on the Dorset coast.
Anning unearths ichthyosaurs...
You get it.
If you're not yet over dinosaurs, you should watch this video right here, because some
nerds made a tiny tweak to the dino family tree, and upheaval happened.
Again, video, watch it.
Do you think there are other scientists that need more credit?
Let us know down in the comments, make sure you subscribe for more Seeker, and thanks
for watching.