Mary Anning explained to kids

Mary Anning was an English fossil hunter who discovered many important fossils, including the first ichthyosaur fossil. Her discoveries helped to change people's ideas about the history of life on Earth. Anning was born in 1799 in Lyme Regis, a town in southwest England. When she was just a child, she and her brother Joseph found the first fossilized skeleton of an ichthyosaur. This was a huge creature that lived in the sea and looked a bit like a dolphin. It was very different from any other creature that people knew about, and it was very exciting to find! Anning continued to find fossils as she grew up. She became an expert at finding and cleaning them. People from all over the world came to buy fossils from her. She also helped scientists to understand what the fossils were and what they could tell us about the history of life on Earth. Anning died in 1847, but her work was very important. She showed that there were creatures on Earth that no one had ever seen before. She also showed that fossils could tell us a lot about the history of our planet.