Dotted Yeti/Shutterstock.com (Ichthyosaurs); Steve Vidler/Alamy Stock Photo (Fossil); Jim McMahon/Mapman® (globe); Taryn Shi/500px/Getty Images (Cliff); Alex Coan/Shutterstock.com (Coprolite); Pacific Imagica/Alamy Stock Photo (Paleontologists); Shutterstock.com (All Other Images)

The Bone Hunter

The story of the 12-year-old girl who helped discover giant creatures from long ago

By Lauren Tarshis

From the March/April 2025 Issue

Learning Objective: Children will learn about a kid who made an amazing fossil discovery.

Lexiles: 550L

Featured Skill: Main Idea, Key Details,

Vocabulary: ichthyosaur, fossil, cliff, ancient, paleontology, observations, coprolites

Topic: Social Studies, Science,

LISTEN AND THINK: As you listen, think about why Mary’s discovery was so amazing.

Ichthyosaurs swam in the oceans.

Millions of years ago, a giant creature called an ichthyosaur (IK-thee-uh-sor) swam in the sea.
It had long jaws with sharp teeth.
It chomped on fish as it swam.

But one day, it died. Its body sank into the mud at the bottom of the sea.

Over millions of years, its flesh rotted and its bones turned into rock. It became a fossil. A fossil is what is left of animals and plants from many, many years ago.

More changes happened. Its watery home became dry land. Now it was a fossil in a cliff.

No one knew it was there until a girl named Mary Anning came along.

PAUSE AND THINK: After the ichthyosaur died, what did it turn into?

Mary’s Childhood

Mary Anning and her fossil

Mary was born in 1799 in a tiny town in England. As she grew, she spent hours walking with her father along the beach and cliffs near their house.
This place was famous for its strange shells and rocks. Mary and her father would gather these, and he would sell them to make money.

Then a terrible thing happened. When Mary was about 11, her father died. The family was left with no money.

Mary knew she had to help. She kept searching for rocks and shells to sell.

Soon she found something that would help her family—and change the way people understood ancient creatures.

PAUSE AND THINK: What was Mary looking for on the beach?

Finding a Fossil

Mary found the fossil in these cliffs.

One day, Mary’s brother spotted something strange on the beach. It looked like a huge skull in the sand. Mary knew she had to dig up the rest of it.

She carefully chipped away at the rock around the skull. She soon realized it was part of a whole skeleton.

This was not a creature that anyone had ever seen before.
In fact, people didn’t even know about dinosaurs back then. Mary was a kid, but she had just made an amazing discovery.

PAUSE AND THINK: What did Mary find?

The Creature

an ichthyosaur fossil at a museum

Mary’s creature had a lizard-like body. It had flippers like a dolphin and a tail like a shark! It was 17 feet long. That’s longer than a pickup truck!

Mary sold the fossil and earned enough money to feed her family for months. The fossil was put on display at a museum.

Mary’s fossil seemed like a monster from a storybook. But, over time, people would learn that it was a real animal from millions of years ago.

PAUSE AND THINK: What was Mary’s creature like?

The Fossil Hunter

coprolite

Mary’s discovery helped create a new kind of science.
It is called paleontology. That is the study of fossils.

As the years went by, Mary continued to hunt for fossils. She would dig them out and study them. She filled notebooks with drawings and observations.

Mary found a flying reptile called a Dimorphodon. She was the first to find a complete skeleton of a swimming reptile called a Plesiosaurus.

She also studied coprolites. Those are pieces of fossilized poop!