Editing Mary Anning (section)

== Major discoveries ==
{{See also|History of palaeontology|Timeline of palaeontology}}

=== Ichthyosaurs ===
[[File:Anning 1st ichthyosaur skeleton.jpg|thumb|alt=Rib, vertebrae, and pelvic bones in a stone matrix|Drawing of part of the skeletal remains of ''Temnodontosaurus platyodon'' (part of specimen NHMUK PV R1158), the first ichthyosaur found by Anning – from Everard Home's 1814 paper]]

Anning's first famous discovery was made shortly after her father's death when she was still a child of about 12. In 1811 (some sources say 1810 or 1809) her brother Joseph found a {{convert|4|ft|m|abbr=on}} skull, but failed to locate the rest of the animal.<ref name="Torrens1995" /> After Joseph told Anning to look between the cliffs at Lyme Regis and Charmouth, she found the skeleton—{{convert|17|ft|abbr=on}} long in all—a few months later. The family hired workmen to dig it out in November that year, an event covered by the local press on 9 November, who identified the fossil as a crocodile.<ref name="Howe12" />

Other [[ichthyosaur]] remains had been discovered in years past at Lyme and elsewhere, but the specimen found by the Annings was the first to come to the attention of scientific circles in London. It was purchased by the lord of a local manor,<ref name=Sharpe15 /> who passed it to [[William Bullock (collector)|William Bullock]] for public display in London<ref name="Torrens1995" /> where it created a sensation. At a time when most people in Britain still believed in a literal interpretation of [[Genesis creation narrative|Genesis]], that the Earth was only a few thousand years old and that species did not evolve or become extinct,<ref name="academy_of_sci">[http://www.ansp.org/museum/jefferson/otherPages/extinction.php "Fossils and Extinction"], The Academy of Natural Sciences. Retrieved 23 September 2010. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100505055123/http://www.ansp.org/museum/jefferson/otherPages/extinction.php |date=5 May 2010 }}</ref> the find raised questions in scientific and religious circles about what the new science of geology was revealing about ancient life and the history of the Earth. Its notoriety increased when [[Sir Everard Home, 1st Baronet|Sir Everard Home]] wrote a series of six papers, starting in 1814, describing it for the Royal Society. The papers never mentioned who had collected the fossil, and in the first one he even mistakenly credited the painstaking cleaning and preparation of the fossil performed by Anning to the staff at Bullock's museum.<ref name="Home1814" /><ref>{{Harvnb|Emling|2009|pp=33–41}}</ref> Perplexed by the creature, Home kept changing his mind about its classification, first thinking it was a kind of fish, then thinking it might have some kind of affinity with the [[platypus|duck-billed platypus]] (only recently known to science); finally in 1819 he reasoned it might be a kind of intermediate form between salamanders and lizards, which led him to propose naming it Proteo-Saurus.<ref name="Rudwick26-30">{{Harvnb|Rudwick|2008|pp=26–30}}</ref><ref name="Home1819">{{Harvnb|Home|1819}}</ref> By then Charles Konig, an assistant curator of the British Museum, had already suggested the name ''Ichthyosaurus'' (fish lizard) for the specimen and that name stuck. Konig purchased the skeleton for the museum in 1819.<ref name="Rudwick26-30" /> The skull of the specimen is still in the possession of the [[Natural History Museum, London|Natural History Museum]] in London (to which the fossil collections of the British Museum were transferred later in the century), but at some point, it became separated from the rest of the skeleton, the location of which is not known.<ref>{{Harvnb|Cadbury|2000|p=324}}</ref>

Anning found several other ichthyosaur fossils between 1815 and 1819, including almost complete skeletons of varying sizes. In 1821, [[William Conybeare (geologist)|William Conybeare]] and Henry De la Beche, both members of the Geological Society of London, collaborated on a paper that analysed in detail the specimens found by Anning and others. They concluded that ichthyosaurs were a previously unknown type of marine reptile, and based on differences in tooth structure, they concluded that there had been at least three species.<ref name="Rudwick26-30" /><ref name="Conybeare1821">{{Harvnb|De la Beche|Conybeare|1821}}</ref> Also in 1821, Anning found the {{convert|20|ft|m|abbr=on}} skeleton from which the species ''Ichthyosaurus platydon'' (now ''[[Temnodontosaurus platyodon]]'') would be named.<ref name=":2">{{Harvnb|Cadbury|2000|p=101}}</ref> In the 1980s it was determined that the first ichthyosaur specimen found by Joseph and Mary Anning was also a member of ''Temnodontosaurus platyodon''.<ref>{{Harvnb|McGowan|2001|p=210}}</ref>

In 2022, two plaster casts of the first complete ichthyosaur skeleton fossil found by Anning that was destroyed in the bombing of London during the Second World War, were discovered in separate collections. One is at the [[Peabody Museum of Natural History]] at [[Yale University]] in the US and the other at the [[Natural History Museum, Berlin|Natural History Museum]] in Berlin, Germany. The casts may be secondary, being made from a direct cast of the fossil, but are determined to be of good condition, "historically important", and likely taken from the specimen put for sale at auction by Anning in 1820.<ref>France-Presse, Agence, ''[https://www.sciencealert.com/a-historic-fish-lizard-fossil-bombed-by-nazis-had-copies-secretly-made A Historic 'Fish Lizard' Fossil Bombed by Nazis Had Copies Secretly Made]'', ''[[ScienceAlert]]'', ''[[Nature (magazine)|Nature]]'', 3 November 2022, with images</ref>

=== ''Plesiosaurus'' ===
[[File:Anning plesiosaur 1823.jpg|thumb|alt=Drawing of partially complete skeleton of creature with long thin neck, small skull, and paddles|Drawing published in the Transactions of the Geological Society of the nearly complete skeleton of ''Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus'' (NHMUK OR 22656) found by Anning in 1823]]
In the same 1821 paper he co-authored with Henry De la Beche on ichthyosaur anatomy, [[William Conybeare (geologist)|William Conybeare]] named and described the genus ''[[Plesiosaurus]]'' (near lizard), called so because he thought it more like modern reptiles than the ichthyosaur had been. The description was based on a number of fossils, the most complete of them specimen OUMNH J.50146, a paddle and vertebral column that had been obtained by Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas James Birch.<ref>Evans, M., 2010, "The roles played by museums, collections, and collectors in the early history of reptile palaeontology", pp. 5–31 in: Richard Moody, E. Buffetaut, D. Naish, D.M. Martill (eds). ''Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Saurians: A Historical Perspective''. Geological Society of London</ref> [[Christopher McGowan]] has hypothesised that this specimen had originally been much more complete and had been collected by Anning, during the winter of 1820/1821. If so, it would have been Anning's next major discovery, providing essential information about the newly recognised type of marine reptile. No records by Anning of the find are known.<ref name="McGowan 2001 23–26">{{Harvnb|McGowan|2001|pp=23–26}}</ref> The paper thanked Birch for giving Conybeare access to it, but does not mention who discovered and prepared it.<ref name="Conybeare1821" /><ref name="McGowan 2001 23–26" />

[[File:Macrocephalus.jpg|thumb|alt=Photo of cast of skeleton of creature with long curved neck, and paddles|Cast of ''[[Plesiosaurus macrocephalus]]'' found by Mary Anning in 1830, [[Muséum national d'histoire naturelle]], Paris]]
In 1823, Anning discovered a second, much more complete plesiosaur skeleton, specimen NHMUK OR 22656 (formerly BMNH 22656). When Conybeare presented his analysis of plesiosaur anatomy to a meeting of the Geological Society in 1824, he again failed to mention Anning by name, even though she had possibly collected both skeletons and had made the sketch of the second skeleton he used in his presentation. Conybeare's presentation was made at the same meeting at which William Buckland described the dinosaur ''[[Megalosaurus]]'' and the combination created a sensation in scientific circles.<ref>{{Harvnb|McGowan|2001|p=75}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Conybeare|1824}}</ref>

Conybeare's presentation followed the resolution of a controversy over the legitimacy of one of the fossils. The fact that the plesiosaur's long neck had an unprecedented 35 vertebrae raised the suspicions of the eminent French anatomist [[Georges Cuvier]] when he reviewed Anning's drawings of the second skeleton, and he wrote to Conybeare suggesting the possibility that the find was a fake produced by combining fossil bones from different kinds of animals. Fraud was far from unknown among early 19th-century fossil collectors, and if the controversy had not been resolved promptly, the accusation could have seriously damaged Anning's ability to sell fossils to other geologists. Cuvier's accusation had resulted in a special meeting of the Geological Society earlier in 1824, which, after some debate, had concluded the skeleton was legitimate. Cuvier later admitted he had acted in haste and was mistaken.<ref>{{Harvnb|Emling|2009|pp=81–83}}</ref>

Anning discovered yet another important and nearly complete plesiosaur skeleton in 1830. It was named ''Plesiosaurus macrocephalus'' by [[William Buckland]] and was described in an 1840 paper by [[Richard Owen]].<ref name="Torrens1995" /> Once again Owen mentioned the wealthy gentleman who had purchased the fossil and made it available for examination, but not the woman who had discovered and prepared it.<ref name="Emling143" />

=== Fossil fish and pterosaur ===
[[File:Pterodactylus macronyx.jpg|thumb|alt=sketch|The [[holotype]] specimen of ''[[Dimorphodon macronyx]]''  (NHMUK PV R 1034) found by Mary Anning in 1828]]
Anning found what a contemporary newspaper article called an unrivalled specimen of ''[[Dapedium|Dapedium politum]]''.<ref>{{Harvnb|Anonymous|1828}}</ref> This was a ray-finned fish, which would be described in 1828. In December of that same year she made an important find consisting of the partial skeleton of a [[pterosaur]]. In 1829 William Buckland described it as ''Pterodactylus macronyx'' (later renamed ''[[Dimorphodon]] macronyx'' by Richard Owen), and unlike many other such occasions, Buckland credited Anning with the discovery in his paper. It was the first pterosaur skeleton found outside Germany, and it created a public sensation when displayed at the British Museum.<ref name="Torrens1995" /> Recent research<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Bestwick |first1=Jordan |last2=Unwin |first2=David M. |last3=Butler |first3=Richard J. |last4=Henderson |first4=Donald M. |last5=Purnell |first5=Mark A. |date=2018 |title=Pterosaur dietary hypotheses: a review of ideas and approaches |url= |journal=Biological Reviews |language=en |volume=93 |issue=4 |pages=2021–2048 |doi=10.1111/brv.12431 |issn=1469-185X |pmc=6849529 |pmid=29877021}}</ref> has found that these creatures were not inclined to fly continuously in their search for fish.<ref>{{Cite web |date=20 June 2018 |title=No, these pterosaurs were not Jurassic puffins {{!}} Elsa Panciroli |url=http://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jun/20/no-these-pterosaurs-were-not-jurassic-puffins |access-date=25 February 2021 |website=The Guardian |language=en}}</ref>

In December 1829 she found a fossil fish, ''[[Squaloraja]]'', which attracted attention because it had characteristics intermediate between sharks and [[Batoidea|rays]].<ref name="Torrens1995" />

=== Invertebrates and trace fossils ===
Vertebrate fossil finds, especially of [[marine reptile]]s, made Anning's reputation, but she made numerous other contributions to early palaeontology.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Eiland |first=Murray |date=2004 |title=London's Dinosaurs |url=https://www.academia.edu/9454946 |journal=Rock and Gem |volume=34 |issue=11 |pages=60–63 |via=academia.edu}}</ref> In 1826 Anning discovered what appeared to be a chamber containing dried ink inside a [[belemnoidea|belemnite]] fossil. She showed it to her friend Elizabeth Philpot who was able to revivify the ink and use it to illustrate some of her own ichthyosaur fossils. Soon other local artists were doing the same, as more such fossilised ink chambers were discovered. Anning noted how closely the fossilised chambers resembled the ink sacs of modern [[squid]] and [[cuttlefish]], which she had dissected to understand the anatomy of fossil [[cephalopod]]s, and this led [[William Buckland]] to publish the conclusion that Jurassic belemnites had used ink for defence just as many modern cephalopods do.<ref>{{multiref|{{Harvnb|McGowan|2001|p=20}}|{{Harvnb|Emling|2009|p=109}}}}</ref> It was also Anning who noticed that the oddly shaped fossils then known as "bezoar stones" were sometimes found in the abdominal region of ichthyosaur skeletons. She noted that if such stones were broken open they often contained fossilised fish bones and scales, and sometimes bones from small ichthyosaurs. Anning suspected the stones were fossilised faeces and suggested so to Buckland in 1824. After further investigation and comparison with similar fossils found in other places, Buckland published that conclusion in 1829 and named them [[coprolites]]. In contrast to the finding of the plesiosaur skeletons a few years earlier, for which she was not credited, when Buckland presented his findings on coprolites to the Geological Society, he mentioned Anning by name and praised her skill and industry in helping to solve the mystery.<ref name="Torrens1995" /><ref>{{Harvnb|Rudwick|2008|pp=154–155}}</ref>