Wednesday, 5 January 2022

Mary Anning's Statue Finally to Be Appropriately Located

Mary Anning was the 19th Century fossil hunter, who essentially made dinosaurs (and other organisms in rocks) popular. She has, however, largely been ignored even in her home town of Lyme Regis in Dorset (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jan/04/perfect-spot-statue-of-fossil-hunter-mary-anning-nears-unveiling). Women who make great discoveries have often been historically ignored. Only one painting of Mary Anning exists. That has been used to produce a statue of her. The statue is set to be unveiled in 2022, after a 4 year campaign by a schoolgirl. She has had to overcome bureaucracy to have the statue appropriately sited, overlooking the Black Ven cliffs on Dorset's Jurassic coast. This is where Mary discovered many of her fossils. Anning's discoveries need to be marked, where she made them! I'm just surprised that the male worthies of Lyme Regis council didn't apparently appreciate how important she is to palaeontology.

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Birder's Bonus 241

Noted a Curlew ( Numenius arquata ) on the Loughor estuary at Bynea.