October 18, 2024

Ashley Castaneda 

11th Grade

John F. Kennedy High School

Do you believe in the existence of dinosaurs? As the world evolves and humans gain new knowledge, scientists now can prove the existence of many species that have gone extinct before the first man walked the earth. Scientists or paleontologists, an individual who studies past geologic periods, can prove the existence of dinosaurs through fossils. Fossils are the remnants of an organism throughout the years that have been preserved in the earth’s crust. The first-ever discovery of a dinosaur fossil was founded by Mary Anning, who is the first and youngest woman paleontologist.

Mary Anning was born on May 21, 1799, in Lyme Regis, England, UK. She was only 12 years old at the time when she discovered what appeared to be the skeleton remains of an ichthyosaur. But before she had made this life-changing discovery, Mary Anning lived a simple and hard life as her family lived in poverty. She often helped her father, Richard Anning, who was a carpenter and a cabinetmaker, work around the coastline mining fossils to make ends meet. Their findings were then sold to tourists as a souvenir, and it was fossil hunting that was keeping the family afloat. Mary learned a lot by the time she spent with her father out on the coast looking for fossils because it was her father who would teach her about the varieties of fossils. 

Tragedy struck in November 1810, when Richard sadly passed away from falling off a cliff. He was already suffering from tuberculosis (TB) and this tragedy left the family in great debt as Richard was the main provider. Mary was left distraught, but she knew she had to find a way to earn income for her family. So she ran the souvenir business on her own and later made greater discoveries like the ichthyosaur, two complete fossils of the plesiosaur, and pterodactyls. Not only did Mary find fossils, but she also kept a journal where she drew the dinosaurs and studied them. This grabbed many famous scientists' attention, and her findings contributed to their research on the extinction of dinosaurs. One of the scientists (Charles Darwin) developed the evolution theory, known as Darwin's Theory of Evolution, using Mary Anning’s research on the fossils!

Mary Anning had made a huge impact in the world of science, but her work lacked recognition. A few of the other fossil hunters believed she was a fraud. Mary never had credit for her findings, instead, the rich individuals who had bought from her business took credit for her work. Mary Anning died due to breast cancer in 1847 at the age of 47. The city mourned but not for Mary, they mourned for the loss of influential visitors who came for the sole reason of meeting Mary. Today her discoveries now rest in the National History Museum in London. People must remember her importance and not forget about her impactful research.