[rock music] Let's uncrate an adventure today!
Hey there, Brad, Mother's Day is coming up.
You got any special plans?
I don't know what to do. My mom's birthday
is the same week as Mother's Day.
Whoa! That's like havin her birthday on Christmas!
Yeah, so normally I just wait until the last
minute, then panic a little, and go get a
card or a plant or something.
Well, that, uh, doesn't sound like a very
good strategy there, Brad.
I don't recommend it. But do you know who
else's birthday is coming up?
Ooh, I know this one! Emilio Estevez. quack,
Quack, QUACK!
No, no, no...That's not what I was thinking.
I mean, maybe it is, I don't know.
It is, Brad.
Okay, that's great, but I was talking about
Mary Anning.
Why should we talk about a French lady who
got her head cut off?
That's Marie Antoinette. We're not talking
about her today. Mary Anning was a British
paleontologist who worked in the early to
mid-1800s, a time when women could not attend
college.
Wow, that's amazing! So, how did she become
a paleontologist if she couldn't go to college?
The Anning family were self-taught paleontologists,
so they looked for fossils around the Jurassic-age
rocks of the Dorsett Cliffs of England where
they lived.
You said fossils from the Jurassic, so did
they find dinosaurs?
No, they found a lot of ammonites, belemnites,
and other animals that lived in the oceans.
Those are ancient squids, right? Like that
fossil Dave Carlson showed us?
Yeah, they are related to that kind of animal.
And she even found a fossilized ink sac in
these relatives of squids and octopus.
Wow, that's a crazy thing to find. Did she
discover anything else?
A whole lot. She found one of the first important
skeletons of an ichthyosaur, a type of marine
reptile, when she was about 11 years old.
Eleven?! That's amazing!
And she found multiple skeletons of plesiosaurs,
another type of marine reptile, that were
described by paleontologists, William Buckland,
who worked on the first dinosaur, and Richard
Owen, who invented the word "dinosaur", which
is Greek for "terrible reptile".
That sounds like good company to keep, working
with Mr. Dinosaur himself.
It would seem that way, but she didn't get
credit for many of her discoveries until long
after they were published just because she
was a woman.
No way! That's not fair! What a backwards
way to be thinking!
I know, seriously! And that's still not all
that she discovered.
There's more?!
She was one of the first people to find a
pterosaur, or flying reptile, outside of rock
deposits in Germany where they had been found
before. And she discovered that small stones
found in the bellies of ichthyosaurs were
actually fossilized poops.
Fossil poop? Who wants to study that?
It seems gross. Remember the poop is fossilized,
so it's a rock. It is important to study to
understand what animals were eating. William
Buckland was the first person to describe
these and gave Mary Anning credit for this
discovery when he named these poops "coprolite."
That's good he finally realized she knew her...uhh...stuff.
Yeah, and she also got credit for the idea
that fossil animals went extinct. Because
people used to think that all the plants and
animals that are on the Earth always existed
the way that they are, and would continue
to exist that way unchanged.
So they found dinosaur bones and giant reptiles
and thought those things still lived somewhere
on the earth?
That's right. Many of Earth's rain forests
had not been very well explored at that time,
so they thought it was possible that dinosaurs
still lived in those parts of the world.
That's nuts, man! I can't believe people used
to think that!
It helps you appreciate all the science in
our everyday lives today, doesn't it?
Yeah, that's for sure.
So Mary Anning is a founding mother of the
science of paleontology. She discovered important
specimens of ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, ammonites,
pterosaurs, she discovered that poop fossilizes,
and that animals went extinct!
What a rock star! And when do we celebrate
the birthday of this paleo-pioneer?
Mary Anning was born May 21st, 1799. Do you
know how old that makes her?
I do not, Brad. Enlighten me.
She will turn 220 years old this year.
Alright there, Brad, that was an interesting
side-road. So, what are you gonna get her?
Well, Mary Anning is unfortunately no longer
with us, so I'm getting her nothing.
No, Brad, I'm talking about your mom!
Oh! Oh, I've got to figure that out. I will
catch you later, Odis.
Get outta here, buddy, the clock is ticking!
Heh heh. Well, folks, that's our show for
this week. Happy Mother's Day to all you brave
souls out there handling business day in and
day out. Please like, subscribe, hit the bell
for notifications, and stay tuned for more
Uncrated!
Hey, I thought you were going there, buddy,
get outta here!
[rock music]
