Mary Anning was born in 1799 into a working-class family. This was a time when scientific inventions and discoveries were challenging long-held beliefs. Mary lived in Lyme Regis, Dorset, which came to be called the “Jurassic Coast” due to its large deposits of geological treasures. During the Jurassic Period, the Dorset coast existed in a deep sea and the bottom waters were anoxic (or lacked dissolved oxygen), so there were fewer scavengers there. As a result, dead marine animals sank to the bottom and were pristinely preserved in the clay. During Mary’s time, the area was experiencing coastal erosion, which made Lyme Regis a prime marine fossil hunting spot. The Annings collected fossils and sold them as curiosities. When Mary’s father, Richard Anning, died in 1810, Mary and her brother Joseph intensified their fossil hunting to keep the family from being destitute. Mary’s keen eye and unrelenting determination led to numerous groundbreaking paleontological discoveries that challenged prevailing scientific beliefs of the time.

Joseph found an ichthyosaur skull in 1811, and Mary found the body the following year when she was just 12 years old. Deep in debt, the Annings sold the skeleton to a local landowner for 23 pounds.