Film: Mary Anning and the Fossils

There is a new animated film from 2025 titled 'mary Anning, a Swiss-Belgian production directed by Marcel Barelli, which tells the true story of the brave young paleontologist mary Anning, who as a child searches for fossils on the English coast and in doing so changes science. The film, showing from December 2025, is an inspiring, visually poetic adventure for young and old, full of courage, perseverance, and the beginnings of paleontology. Do you know Mary Anning?

Mary Anning (1799 – 1847)

Biography

Mary Anning (Lyme Regis (Dorset), 21 May 1799 – ibid., 9 March 1847) was an English fossil collector and paleontologist, known for, among other things, discoveries of ichthyosaurus en PlesiosaurusShe spent her entire life searching for fossils in the limestone cliffs of Lyme Regis, which are now considered part of the so-called Jurassic Coast.

Anning was born into a destitute family. Her mother was Molly Moore. Her father, Richard Anning, was a carpenter who collected fossils to sell to tourists to earn some extra money. The couple had 10 children, two of whom survived. Anning learned to read and write at Sunday school. When her father died of tuberculosis in 1811, Mary and her older brother Joseph began carving fossils full-time out of the high chalk cliffs to sell to tourists for a living. Fossil collecting became popular in the early 19th century, when it became increasingly clear that fossils could make an important contribution to biology and geology. Although Anning was primarily trying to earn money, she came into contact with well-known scientists of the time, who bought the fossils from her.

Thanks to her income, she was able to open a shop in her own premises, Anning's Fossil Depot. However, in 1835 she lost her savings and was also diagnosed with breast cancer. The painkiller laudanum she was using caused her to stagger, and her fellow villagers prevented her from climbing the chalk cliffs to search for fossils. She received a grant from the British Association for the Advancement of Science, which relieved her financial worries. Mary Anning died in 1847 at the age of 47.

 

Anning's finds

Anning first drew attention to herself in 1811 with her discovery of a nearly complete ichthyosaurus, a few months after her father's death. The year before, the skull of the fossil had been discovered by her brother; a storm had now exposed the rest of the fossil as well. This was in fact not the first ichthyosaur ever discovered; there are descriptions of a find in Wales in 1699. Nevertheless, it was an important find, which moved to London and was described in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Anning would later discover two other species of ichthyosaurs. While Joseph trained as a furniture maker, Mary began corresponding with paleontologists, who also came to her hometown to meet her. In 1823, Anning was the discoverer of a fossil of Plesiosaurus, which was named Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus by William Conybeare, but is not the holotype of the taxon Plesiosaurus. She also found an intact fossil of Diapedium politum, a ray-finned whale, which was described in 1828. In that same year, she found the first pterosaur outside Germany (Pterodactylus macronyx, later renamed Dimorphodon macronyx by Richard Owen); this fossil of a flying archosaur was probably the first fairly complete pterosaur ever found in England. These are Anning's three most important finds, although she also made many less significant fossil discoveries. In a letter to William Buckland, she wrote about cone-shaped stones she found, which she interpreted as fossilized droppings of Ichthyosaurus. Buckland subsequently developed the concept of coprolites.  

Significance for science and recognition

Although Anning sought her fossils to sell, she knew a great deal about them and was well aware of their scientific value. She was a self-taught individual capable of describing, drawing, and recording the exact location of her finds without formal training. It was thanks in part to Anning's fossils that biologists gained a much clearer understanding of how species went extinct across the geological timescale while new species emerged. This realization would profoundly change the theory of evolution. It led to Lamarckism and ultimately to Darwin's insight that evolution occurs through natural selection.

The British geologist Henry De la Beche drew and watercolored reconstructions of the fossils that Mary Anning found in the Jurassic of Dorset. Because she was impoverished, he sold prints based on such watercolors and gave the proceeds to her. She herself was a skilled illustrator. For pen drawings, she used the fossil ink of cephalopods, which she managed to make fluid again.

During her lifetime, Anning was recognized as an authority in paleontology but never received an academic position, which at the time was not open to people of her sex and class. Women were allowed to attend lectures but could not enroll at universities. Researchers did use her results, but often did not mention her name. However, in gratitude for her work, she was appointed an honorary member of the Geological Society and received an annual annuity from the British Association for the Advancement of Science to enable her to continue her work. Actual membership in a society was not common for women at that time. Anning corresponded with scientists from across Europe and sold fossils to many institutions.

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Site where all Mary Annings stamps are explained with examples of foreign stamps: https://www.paleophilatelie.eu/description/stamps/uk_2024_2.html Story: Follows young Mary Anning who, after the disappearance of her father, turns her passion for fossils into a life's mission on the cliffs of Lyme Regis. Themes: Courage, perseverance, standing up for yourself, and discovering a new science. Style: A poetic animation with a punk rock soundtrack that takes the viewer on an adventure. Animated film trailer (72 minutes) Mary Anning (2025): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1IBx6wp9UU