Mary Anning Weekend

The weekend of the 29th and 30th September is part of the Mary Anning Week event at the Lyme Regis Museum, Dorset.  Mary Anning was a prolific fossil collector who discovered several very well known marine reptiles from the Jurassic rocks and cliffs around Lyme Regis.  She also discovered one of the first recorded English Pterodactyles.

This specimen of Dimorphodon macronyx (then Pterodactylus macronyx) was collected from the Undercliff in the Lower Jurassic Blue Lias at Lyme Regis.  It was described by the Reverend Willaim Buckland in his 1829 paper and the specimen now resides in the Natural History Museum, London.

Buckland W., 1829

Several other specimens were found in the Lias following this discovery, including a skull, two tails and a near complete skeleton.  The skull, also now in the Natural History Museum, was drawn by Mary's brother Joseph, using reconstituted belemnite ink from the cliff fossils.  This early drawing is now in the Lyme Regis Museum.

Other illustrations have since been done using this method of ink drawing.  The Annings made a good living selling fossils from the Liassic Cliffs around Lyme.  Many of them can be found in museums around the UK and some have been sent to overseas customers.  The Plesiosaurs and Ichthyosaurs are perhaps their most dramatic finds from this time.

Lyme Regis Museum