Mary Anning lived in Lyme Regis in Dorset. Her family were very poor so she didn’t attend school very much and instead taught herself to read and write. Her family had so little money she spent days searching on the beach looking for ‘curiosities’ to sell to visitors. She later realised that these were actually fossils.

When Mary was 12, she discovered the shell of a creature in the cliff. She thought it was a crocodile but it was an ancient ichthyosaur (meaning ‘fish lizard’). She also found fossils of a marine reptile called a plesiosaur and a flying reptile called a dimorphodon.

Famous scientists from around the country would visit her to discuss scientific ideas about fossils.