What is Mary Anning?
{{Infobox Person | name = Mary Anning | image = Mary_Anning_painting.jpg | image_size = | caption = | birth_date = 21 May 1799 | birth_place = [[Lyme Regis]], [[Dorset]], England | death_date = 9 March 1847 | death_place = Lyme Regis, England | occupation = [[Fossil]] collector and [[paleontology|paleontologist]] | spouse = | parents = Richard and Mary Anning | children = none }} [[File:Mary Anning Plaque.JPG|thumb|This [[blue plaque]] is mounted on what is believed to be the site of the house where Mary Anning was born and had her first fossil shop, currently site of the [[Lyme Regis Museum]].]] '''''M''ary Anning''' (21 May 1799 – 9 March 1847) was an early 19th-century [[British]] [[fossil]] collector, dealer and [[paleontology|paleontologist]]. She earned her living finding and preparing fossils, in the rich [[Jurassic]] [[Ocean|marine]] [[strata]] at [[Lyme Regis, Dorset]] where she lived. She made many important finds. These included the first [[ichthyosaur]] skeleton to be correctly identified (''[[Temnodontosaurus platyodon]]''); the first two [[plesiosaur]] skeletons ever found (''[[Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus]]''); the first [[pterosaur]] skeleton found outside [[Germany]] (''[[Dimorphodon macronyx]]''); and some important fish fossils. Her observations played a key role in the discoveries that [[belemnite]] fossils contained fossilized [[ink]] sacs, and that [[coprolite]]s, known as bezoar stones at the time, were fossilized faeces. When the geologist [[Henry De la Beche]] painted ''Duria Antiquior'', he based it largely on fossils Anning had found. He sold prints for her benefit. Her work played a key role in the growth of scientific biology in the early 19th century. It showed without question that previously unknown forms of life had existed in the Jurassic seas, all of which were long [[extinct]]. Anning's sex and social class—her parents were poor religious dissenters (non-Anglican [[Protestants]])—prevented her from fully participating in the scientific