num_pages: 256
description: Mary Anning was only twelve years old when in 1811 she discovered the first dinosaur skeleton--of an ichthyosaur--while fossil hunting on the cliffs of Lyme Regis England. Until Mary's incredible discovery it was widely believed that animals did not become extinct. The child of a poor family Mary became a fossil hunter inspiring the tongue-twister She Sells Sea Shells by the Seashore. She attracted the attention of fossil collectors and eventually the scientific world. Once news of the fossils reached the halls of academia it became impossible to ignore the truth. Marys peculiar finds helped lay the groundwork for Charles Darwins theory of evolution laid out in his On the Origin of Species. Darwin drew on Marys fossilized creatures as irrefutable evidence that life in the past was nothing like life in the present. A story worthy of Dickens The Fossil Hunter chronicles the life of this young girl with d
language: English
title: The Fossil Hunter: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World
publisher: St. Martin's Press