Athena Review Image Archive ™
Mary Anning (1799-1847)
Portrait of Mary Anning (painted before 1833)
Mary Anning, shown in this portait at about age 31, lived in Lyme Regis on the south coast of England.
Mary
Anning was an expert fossil collector in the Blue Lias formation of
coastal Devonshire, England. This Jurassic formation of alternate
limestone and mudstone layers occurs prominently at Lyme Regis and
Charmouth in Devonshire.
At Lyme Regis Mary Anning discovered several new species of large marine reptiles from the Early Jurassic, including Ichthyosaurus platydon and Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus.
She also worked there with a number of other geological researchers including
Roderick Murchison, Gideon Mantell, and Louis Agassiz, with whom in the 1830s she co-discovered various taxa of
fossil fish including the shark Acrodus anniangiae, named after her.
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