Summary of Mary Anning, la primera paleontóloga | Las Incansables

00:00:00 - 00:10:00

Mary Anning, the first female paleontologist, was born in 1799 in Saint Régis, England. After her father's death, she and her brother began selling fossils to support their family. Mary discovered a five-meter prehistoric crocodile-like creature but was not given credit due to her gender. She continued her work and opened a fossil shop, but it wasn't until after her death from breast cancer in 1847 that she received recognition in the scientific community. Mary Anning was declared one of the most influential British scientists in history in 2010 by the Royal Society.

• 00:00:00 In this section, the video recounts the life of Mary Anning, the first female paleontologist in history. Mary was born in 1799 in Saint Régis, a town in England. Her father was an artisan with a passion for finding fossils, a hobby that Mary inherited at a young age. Her father's untimely death from tuberculosis and fall from a cliff while searching for fossils plunged the family into poverty. At the age of 11, Mary and her brother Joseph began to sell fossils to provide for the family. One of their major discoveries was a giant squid fossil that sold for a large sum of money. Mary continued to make important fossil discoveries with the help of her friend Elizabeth, a more experienced paleontologist. She eventually caught the attention of fossil collector Thomas Birch, who helped her sell her finds at auction.
• 00:05:00 In this section, the video discusses the discovery made by Mary Anning of a five-meter crocodile-like creature with 60 vertebrae and a complete skeleton. This find caused a scandal in the scientific community, but men did not want to give her credit for the discovery since she was a woman. Instead, they ignored her and pretended she had not made the discovery. Despite this, Mary continued her work and eventually sold the fossil to a collector for 23 pounds. The collector later sold it to the British Museum and then to the Museum of Natural History in London. Mary also opened a small fossil shop and began to focus more on academia in hopes of achieving recognition for her work.
• 00:10:00 In this section, we learn about Mary Anning, the first female paleontologist. In 1839, the British Museum of Natural History published a discovery of a prehistoric shark, which Mary had actually discovered 20 years prior and had written to them about. Mary died at the age of 48 from breast cancer, but until her last day, she tirelessly searched for fossils and sought recognition in the scientific community. It was only after her death in 1847 that her friend, the president of the Geological Society of London, wrote a heartfelt obituary about her. Despite her significant contributions to the field, it wasn't until 2010 that the Royal Society declared Mary Anning as one of the most influential British scientists in history.