Listen to Episode 80 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or that other podcast place you like!
Happy Darwin Day! In keeping with tradition, we’re joined by special guest Brittney Stoneburg this episode to discuss one of the most influential figures of early paleontology, a person who helped set the stage for the ways we uncover and understand ancient life today, and who was famously not famous in her own time. This episode, we’re discussing Mary Anning.
In the news
New insights into the evolution of giant straight-tusked elephants
A pterosaur bit a squid and left a tooth behind
Creatures of the Jurassic Karoo left footprints between layers of cooled lava
Microscopic fossils form the Congo might be the oldest known fungi
Mary Anning
Mary Anning grew up in the earliest 1800s, in a society that had only recently accepted the concept of extinction, and still decades before Darwin published his famous theory of natural selection. In her time, the field of paleontology was so young that the word “dinosaur” wasn’t even coined until shortly before her death.
Mary’s family was not wealthy, and as a child Mary joined the family practice of collecting fossils to sell to the sorts of people who collected them as “curiosities.” It was fortunate for them that they lived in Lyme Regis, England, along a stretch of exposed Mesozoic rocks called the Jurassic Coast, famous for its extraordinary fossils.
Mary was a skilled fossil hunter, and from a young age she was discovering fossils that changed how people viewed the past. Her discoveries (some made with the help of her family) included the first identified plesiosaur, Plesiosaurus macrocephalus; the first specimen of Ichthyosaurus; and the first identified British pterosaur, Pterodactylus.
Mary certainly wasn’t unnoticed in her time. Her skills were sought after by many of the other big names in early paleontology, such as William Buckland, Richard Owen, and Louis Agassiz, to name a few. Many praised her work during her life, and Charles Dickens famously wrote of her after her death, “The carpenter’s daughter has won a name for herself, and has deserved to win it.”
But as respected as she was by some, Mary never earned the same level of respect and honor as those famous “men of science” of her time. She was a woman and of low class, so she was largely excluded from scientific society, wasn’t able to publish her own work, and for a long time was left out of discussions of the history of paleontology as a science.
Learn more about Mary Anning:
Mary Anning: the unsung hero of fossil discovery at NHM London.
Mary Anning at UCMP Berkeley
Fossil Hunter, a book by Shelley Emling.
If you like podcasts (duh), listen to Episode 5 of Femmes of Stem with our friend Michelle (adult language)
Michelle also discussed Mary and other women of science with us in Episode 19.
And the awesome crew at Mary Anning’s Revenge recommend these two books: Remarkable Creatures: A Novel by Tracy Chevalier, and Jurassic Mary, a biography about Mary Anning by Patricia Pierce.
Our special guest, Brittney
You can follow Brittney on Twitter and Instagram @brittandbone
She’s also one of the founders of Cosplay for Science
And check out the Western Science Center because it’s an awesome place!
—
If you enjoyed this topic and want more like it, check out these related episodes:
- Episode 19 – Women in Paleontology
- Episode 116 – Ichthyosaurs
- Episode 72 – Plesiosaurs
- Episode 79 – Pterosaurs
We also invite you to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, buy merch at our Zazzle store, join our Discord server, or consider supporting us with a one-time PayPal donation or on Patreon to get bonus recordings and other goodies!
Please feel free to contact us with comments, questions, or topic suggestions, and to rate and review us on iTunes!
COMMON DESCENT 