How every fact on this site was checked
192 facts. Each one is in our own words, each one has a source, and each one was checked against that source on 10 November 2026.
How we check
We read each source and wrote each fact in our own words. Our build stores the text of every source page, and for each fact it checks that the key words and figures, the “checks” in the table, really appear on the source page. If any check fails, the site does not build. Where good sources disagree, we show each version in a “Sources differ” box rather than picking one. Anything that is our own reading, rather than a sourced fact, is labelled Our opinion. The drawings are our own and simplified; the soft parts in the anatomy drawing are a reconstruction, because no fossil ammonite arms have been found.
Known disagreements
- Closest relatives. Thought closer to squid, octopuses and cuttlefish (Natural History Museum; Imperial College, 2021), or described as relatives of the nautilus (BGS, Britannica), with the nautilus as nearest living relative (NHM folklore article).
- How old. Ammonoidea from about 450 million years ago (NHM), ammonoid fossils from the Devonian, 419 million years ago (Britannica), or ammonites over about 140 million years of the Jurassic and Cretaceous (BGS).
- Depth. Perhaps down to about 400 m (NHM), or probably no deeper than 100 m (BGS).
- The largest specimen. 1.8 m, perhaps 2.5 to 3.5 m complete (NHM); 1.95 m, about 2.55 m complete (BGS); or 205 cm (Britannica).
- Food. Crustaceans, bivalves, fish and plankton (NHM); plankton, plants of the sea floor and slow seabed animals (BGS); zooplankton, crustaceans and other ammonoids, as predators (Britannica).
- The name. From the Greek Cornu Ammonis, after Jupiter Ammon (NHM), or from the Egyptian god Amun, Zeus Ammon to the Greeks (BGS).
- Mary Anning’s family. Nine children (NHM), at least nine (Geological Society), or ten (BBC News), with only two surviving.
- The first ichthyosaur. Skull found by Joseph in 1811 and skeleton by Mary in 1812 (NHM), or found by Mary in 1811 (BBC News).
- Her age when her father died. Ten, in her own account (Geological Society), or 11 (BBC News).
What we left out
- Several pages we wanted to use would not load for us to check, including pages from the Jurassic Coast Trust, Lyme Regis Museum, National Museums Scotland and Britannica’s Mary Anning article. Nothing from them is used.
- The folklore sources describe ammonites used as cures and charms. We report the legends, not the claimed cures, and none of them should be taken as advice.
- Fossil collecting rules differ from beach to beach and can change. The hunting page summarises the codes on the date we checked them; the codes themselves are linked and take priority.
- The shell sizer is our own arithmetic from the sources’ figures, not a quoted fact.
The log
| # | Fact | Source | Checks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ammonites were sea animals with shells: extinct cephalopods, the group that includes today’s squid, octopuses and nautiluses. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 2 passed |
| 2 | They died out about 66 million years ago, and their fossils turn up all around the world, sometimes in huge numbers. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 2 passed |
| 3 | Ammonites belonged to the phylum Mollusca and the class Cephalopoda. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 1 passed |
| 4 | Cephalopods fall into three groups: coleoids (squid, octopuses and cuttlefish), nautiloids, and ammonites. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 1 passed |
| 5 | Their shells make them look like nautiluses, but the Natural History Museum says they are thought to be more closely related to the coleoids. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 1 passed |
| 6 | The museum’s fossil curator thinks ammonites more likely had eight arms than the many tentacles of a nautilus. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 1 passed |
| 7 | No fossil of ammonite arms has been found yet, so much of what we know about the soft body is inferred from living cephalopods. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 2 passed |
| 8 | The British Geological Survey calls ammonites extinct relatives of sea creatures such as the modern nautilus. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 1 passed |
| 9 | Britannica describes ammonoids as forms related to the modern pearly nautilus. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Ammonoid | 1 passed |
| 10 | The Natural History Museum’s folklore article calls the chambered nautilus the ammonites’ nearest living relative, a ‘living fossil’. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 1 passed |
| 11 | A 2021 study of a rare fossil with soft parts found evidence that squid, octopuses and cuttlefish might be closer relatives of ammonites than had been thought. | Imperial College London: Rare Jurassic fossil reveals never-before-seen ammonite anatomy | 1 passed |
| 12 | Ammonites had a coiled shell on the outside of the body. In living octopus, squid and cuttlefish, the shell is small and inside the body, or missing. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 2 passed |
| 13 | Every ammonite had a shell divided into chambers, which it used to float. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 1 passed |
| 14 | Ammonites hatched with tiny shells and added new chambers as they grew, moving the whole body forward and sealing off the old space with a wall called a septum. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 2 passed |
| 15 | Nobody knows how often a new chamber was built. A monthly rhythm has been suggested, but there is no evidence for it. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 2 passed |
| 16 | The septa strengthened the shell and stopped the water pressure outside from crushing it. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 1 passed |
| 17 | The animal lived only in the last chamber, the body chamber. The earlier chambers held gas or fluid, which it could adjust to rise, sink and move, much like a submarine. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 2 passed |
| 18 | The chambers were linked by a tube. | Natural History Museum: Fantastic fossils in the UK and where to find them | 1 passed |
| 19 | Where each septum met the shell wall it left a wiggly line called a suture. The septa had frilled edges. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 2 passed |
| 20 | Each complete turn of the coil is called a whorl. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 1 passed |
| 21 | Apart from the innermost whorl, the shell had three layers of aragonite, a form of calcium carbonate. The thick middle layer was nacre, or mother-of-pearl. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 2 passed |
| 22 | Ribs, spines and knobs on the shell may have made it stronger, and may have helped protect and hide the animal. They also helped with buoyancy and may have been for display. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 2 passed |
| 23 | Most ammonite shells grew into a flat spiral, called a planispiral. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 1 passed |
| 24 | Shells could be loosely or tightly coiled, flat or twisted like a corkscrew, and some started as a tight spiral and then straightened out. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 3 passed |
| 25 | Nipponites mirabilis, found in Japan, is exceptionally rare and looks a bit like a knot. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 2 passed |
| 26 | Ammonites coiled in unusual ways are called heteromorphs, from Greek words meaning ‘different’ and ‘form’. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 2 passed |
| 27 | Unlike snails, ammonites coil in one plane, so they are neither left- nor right-handed. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 1 passed |
| 28 | Books traditionally draw ammonites with the body chamber at the top. In life they swam the other way up. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 2 passed |
| 29 | A 3D study of a fossil with preserved muscles suggests ammonites swam by jet propulsion, pushing water out through a tube called a hyponome. | Imperial College London: Rare Jurassic fossil reveals never-before-seen ammonite anatomy | 2 passed |
| 30 | Paired muscles probably pulled the animal deep into its body chamber for protection. Ammonites had no ink sac to hide behind, unlike squid and octopuses. | Imperial College London: Rare Jurassic fossil reveals never-before-seen ammonite anatomy | 2 passed |
| 31 | That fossil, five centimetres across, was found in Jurassic rock in Gloucestershire in 1998. It was the first time an ammonite’s soft parts had been seen in three dimensions. | Imperial College London: Rare Jurassic fossil reveals never-before-seen ammonite anatomy | 3 passed |
| 32 | The same study found muscles that nautiluses do not have, so ammonites and the nautilus may be less alike than was thought. | Imperial College London: Rare Jurassic fossil reveals never-before-seen ammonite anatomy | 2 passed |
| 33 | Males and females looked different. Males (microconchs) could have long prongs called lappets near the shell opening; females were macroconchs. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 2 passed |
| 34 | An estimated more than 10,000 ammonite species have been discovered, and possibly more than 20,000. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 1 passed |
| 35 | Counting is tricky because males and females of one species were once often named as two separate species. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 1 passed |
| 36 | Many ammonite names end in -ceras, from the Greek keras, meaning horn. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 1 passed |
| 37 | Each ammonite has a two-part Latin name, the genus followed by the species, plus the name of the person who first described it and the date. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 1 passed |
| 38 | The Natural History Museum says the wider group Ammonoidea first appeared about 450 million years ago. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 1 passed |
| 39 | The ‘true ammonites’, the Ammonitida, are known from the Jurassic Period, from about 200 million years ago. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 2 passed |
| 40 | Britannica says ammonoid fossils are found in rocks from the Devonian Period, which began 419 million years ago, to the end of the Cretaceous, 66 million years ago. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Ammonoid | 1 passed |
| 41 | The British Geological Survey says ammonites lived in the Jurassic and Cretaceous, a span of about 140 million years. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 2 passed |
| 42 | The Jurassic began about 201 million years ago and the Cretaceous ended about 66 million years ago. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 1 passed |
| 43 | Three groups followed one another, each with a more complicated suture. The goniatites, with simple sutures, flourished in the Palaeozoic Era, 541 to 252 million years ago. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Ammonoid | 2 passed |
| 44 | The ceratites, with more folded sutures, came next and were most common in the Triassic, 252 to 201 million years ago. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Ammonoid | 1 passed |
| 45 | Most of them died out at the end of the Triassic, but a few survived and gave rise to many forms with the intricate ‘ammonite’ suture. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Ammonoid | 2 passed |
| 46 | Ammonites lived all over the world, and only in the sea. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 2 passed |
| 47 | So if you find an ammonite in a rock, the place you are standing was once under the sea. | Natural History Museum: Fantastic fossils in the UK and where to find them | 1 passed |
| 48 | The Natural History Museum says they tended to live in shallower seas, perhaps down to about 400 metres. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 1 passed |
| 49 | The British Geological Survey says they could probably not cope with depths of more than 100 metres. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 1 passed |
| 50 | Ammonites ranged from a few millimetres across to many times bigger. Big ones were more common from the Late Jurassic onwards. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 2 passed |
| 51 | Some species were tiny; others were as big as a person. | Natural History Museum: Fantastic fossils in the UK and where to find them | 1 passed |
| 52 | The Late Jurassic Nannocardioceras was tiny: complete adults are rarely more than 20 mm across. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 2 passed |
| 53 | The largest known species is Parapuzosia seppenradensis, from the Late Cretaceous. The Natural History Museum says the largest specimen is 1.8 metres across and incomplete; whole, it could have been 2.5 to 3.5 metres. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 2 passed |
| 54 | The British Geological Survey gives the same specimen as 1.95 m across, found in Germany in 1895, and about 2.55 m if complete. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 3 passed |
| 55 | Britannica measures the shell of Pachydiscus seppenradensis (an older name) at 205 centimetres and calls it probably the largest shelled mollusc ever. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Ammonoid | 2 passed |
| 56 | Depending on their size, ammonites probably ate much what cephalopods eat today, such as crustaceans, bivalves and fish. Smaller species probably ate plankton, and some may have scavenged. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 3 passed |
| 57 | The British Geological Survey suggests small plankton or plants on the sea floor, slow-moving animals of the seabed, and drifting or dead sea creatures. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 2 passed |
| 58 | Britannica says nearly all ammonoids are thought to have been predators, with evidence that they ate zooplankton, crustaceans and other ammonoids. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Ammonoid | 2 passed |
| 59 | Ammonites were food for others too: there is evidence that mosasaurs and ichthyosaurs ate them, and fish probably did. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 1 passed |
| 60 | Their enemies included marine reptiles, crustaceans, fish and even other ammonites. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 1 passed |
| 61 | Most ammonites died out with the non-avian dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous, when an asteroid hit Earth. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 2 passed |
| 62 | A long impact winter stopped photosynthesis on land and in the sea, cutting off food. That was devastating for ammonites. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 2 passed |
| 63 | Britannica notes a theory that a sudden fall in plankton at the end of the Cretaceous finished off the last ammonoids. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Ammonoid | 1 passed |
| 64 | Not quite all went at once: a few species lived on into the Palaeogene in the Western Interior Seaway before dying out. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 1 passed |
| 65 | Nautiluses survived, probably partly because they live in deeper water, which was less affected, and because their larger hatchlings were less limited by the size of food. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 2 passed |
| 66 | After extinctions, many shelled animals shrink because they lack the resources to grow, so ammonite sizes can help scientists study past climate change. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 1 passed |
| 67 | Studies of the chemistry of the shells, called sclerochronology, are starting to show how long ammonites might have lived. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 2 passed |
| 68 | Fossils are the remains of plants and animals buried in sediments such as sand and mud under ancient seas, lakes and rivers. | British Geological Survey: Fossils | 1 passed |
| 69 | Rapid burial by sediment that had settled out of water is needed for a fossil to form. | British Geological Survey: Fossils | 1 passed |
| 70 | Soft parts rot soon after death, but hard parts such as shells, bones and teeth can be replaced by minerals that harden into rock. | British Geological Survey: Fossils | 2 passed |
| 71 | The word fossil comes from the Latin fossilis, meaning ‘unearthed’. | British Geological Survey: Fossils | 1 passed |
| 72 | Fossils include any preserved trace of life that is usually more than 10,000 years old. | British Geological Survey: Fossils | 1 passed |
| 73 | The commonest way is petrification by permineralisation: mineral-rich water soaks through a buried shell or bone and minerals such as calcium carbonate or silica fill and finally replace it. | British Geological Survey: Fossils | 2 passed |
| 74 | If the shell dissolves away it can leave a hollow in its shape, a mould. Sediment can later fill the hollow to make a matching cast. | British Geological Survey: Fossils | 2 passed |
| 75 | Usually the coiled shell is the only part of an ammonite that is preserved. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 1 passed |
| 76 | Fossils are usually found in sedimentary rock, formed when sand, silt, mud or the shells of sea creatures settle in layers that are pressed together. | Natural History Museum: What is a fossil? | 1 passed |
| 77 | Some ammonites look as if they were dipped in gold. The colour comes from iron pyrite, often called fool’s gold. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 2 passed |
| 78 | Pyrite reacts with air and moisture, and that can make a fossil fall apart. | Natural History Museum: What is a fossil? | 2 passed |
| 79 | Some Cretaceous ammonites keep much of their original shell, which gives them a pearly shine. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 2 passed |
| 80 | Index fossils are used to work out the age of sedimentary rocks: finding the same one in different places shows the rocks formed at about the same time. | Natural History Museum: What is a fossil? | 2 passed |
| 81 | Because ammonites were common and evolved fast, much of Europe’s Mesozoic rock has been divided into ‘ammonite zones’. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 1 passed |
| 82 | They make excellent guide fossils: each species lasted a fairly short time, they turn up in many kinds of marine rock, they are common and quite easy to identify, and they lived worldwide. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 2 passed |
| 83 | Ammonites can pin down slices of geological time less than 200,000 years long, which is very precise for Earth history. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 2 passed |
| 84 | Britannica also calls ammonoids important index fossils, for their wide spread, rapid evolution and easily recognised features. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Ammonoid | 1 passed |
| 85 | Using ammonites to date rocks was pioneered in the 1850s by two Germans, Friedrich Quenstedt and his former pupil Albert Oppel. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 3 passed |
| 86 | Their work used the ammonites of southern Germany’s Swabian and Franconian Alb, part of the range that runs on from the Jura Mountains, which gave the Jurassic its name. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 2 passed |
| 87 | The crinkly, complex suture is what tells ammonoids apart from nautiloids. | Encyclopaedia Britannica: Ammonoid | 1 passed |
| 88 | Ammonites evolved so quickly that sampling up through layers of rock shows the changes from one layer to the next. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 1 passed |
| 89 | The Dorset and East Devon Coast, the Jurassic Coast, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site of eight sections along 155 km of coast. | UNESCO World Heritage: Dorset and East Devon Coast | 1 passed |
| 90 | Its cliffs show an almost unbroken run of Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks covering about 185 million years of Earth’s history. | UNESCO World Heritage: Dorset and East Devon Coast | 2 passed |
| 91 | It was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2001. | UNESCO World Heritage: Dorset and East Devon Coast | 1 passed |
| 92 | The coast has been studied by scientists for more than 300 years. | UNESCO World Heritage: Dorset and East Devon Coast | 1 passed |
| 93 | Fast erosion keeps the rock faces fresh and keeps the coast producing new fossils. | UNESCO World Heritage: Dorset and East Devon Coast | 1 passed |
| 94 | Lyme Regis is known for a near-complete Jurassic ammonite zonation, and for the marine reptile fossils first collected by Mary Anning. | IUGS Geoheritage: Jurassic Coast, Lyme Regis | 2 passed |
| 95 | The West Dorset coast has one of the finest exposures of Lower and Middle Jurassic rocks anywhere in the world. | West Dorset Fossil Collecting Code of Conduct (PDF, Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre) | 1 passed |
| 96 | High erosion, especially in winter, keeps the beaches supplied with fossils. | West Dorset Fossil Collecting Code of Conduct (PDF, Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre) | 1 passed |
| 97 | Natural England has made this coast a Site of Special Scientific Interest for its geology, fossils and landslides. | West Dorset Fossil Collecting Code of Conduct (PDF, Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre) | 1 passed |
| 98 | Monmouth Beach, to the west of the Cobb at Lyme Regis, is popular with fossil hunters. Ammonites, belemnites, fossil plants and even ichthyosaur vertebrae have been found there. | Visit Dorset: Monmouth Beach, Lyme Regis discovery trail | 1 passed |
| 99 | Its cliffs are said to date from 189 to 199 million years ago, from the Early Jurassic, when warm seas covered most of the UK. | Visit Dorset: Monmouth Beach, Lyme Regis discovery trail | 2 passed |
| 100 | At low tide, a limestone layer at the far end of the beach, the ammonite graveyard or pavement, shows hundreds of large ammonites in the bedrock and boulders. | Visit Dorset: Monmouth Beach, Lyme Regis discovery trail | 1 passed |
| 101 | Monmouth Beach is the way into the Axmouth to Lyme Regis Undercliffs National Nature Reserve, about 6 miles of landslipped undercliffs between Devon and Dorset. | Undercliffs Fossil Collecting Code, version 2 (PDF, Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre) | 1 passed |
| 102 | The shore and cliffs at Lyme Regis and at Whitby in Yorkshire are famous places for collecting ammonites. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 1 passed |
| 103 | The Natural History Museum names Lyme Regis in Dorset and Runswick Bay in Yorkshire as good places to find ammonites, in rocks about 201 to 66 million years old. | Natural History Museum: Fantastic fossils in the UK and where to find them | 2 passed |
| 104 | On the Isle of Wight, Watershoot Bay near St Catherine’s Lighthouse has Late Cretaceous rocks about 95 to 99 million years old, good for ammonites, bivalves and brachiopods. | Natural History Museum: How to find fossils on the beach | 3 passed |
| 105 | As a general rule, landowners own the fossils on or under their land. The National Trust is the main landowner on the West Dorset coast. | West Dorset Fossil Collecting Code of Conduct (PDF, Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre) | 2 passed |
| 106 | The West Dorset Code’s best advice for beginners and school groups is to stick to the beaches. | West Dorset Fossil Collecting Code of Conduct (PDF, Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre) | 1 passed |
| 107 | Always check the tide times before you go. The Code advises collecting on a falling tide. | West Dorset Fossil Collecting Code of Conduct (PDF, Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre) | 2 passed |
| 108 | Always tell someone where you are going and when you expect to be back. | West Dorset Fossil Collecting Code of Conduct (PDF, Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre) | 1 passed |
| 109 | Cliff falls happen suddenly and without warning, so keep away from the base of cliffs. | West Dorset Fossil Collecting Code of Conduct (PDF, Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre) | 2 passed |
| 110 | Keep off moving rock falls and mudflows. The seaward edges of mudflows can be hidden under shingle. | West Dorset Fossil Collecting Code of Conduct (PDF, Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre) | 2 passed |
| 111 | There should be no digging into the cliffs without permission. | West Dorset Fossil Collecting Code of Conduct (PDF, Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre) | 1 passed |
| 112 | Ammonites are among the commonest fossils on the Dorset coast, so ordinary finds don’t need recording, though unusual species or very large shells are worth recording. | West Dorset Fossil Collecting Code of Conduct (PDF, Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre) | 1 passed |
| 113 | The West Dorset Code covers National Trust and Charmouth Parish Council land between Lyme Regis and Hive Beach at Burton Bradstock. | West Dorset Fossil Collecting Code of Conduct (PDF, Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre) | 1 passed |
| 114 | In the Undercliffs reserve you may collect loose material found on the beaches and foreshore. | Undercliffs Fossil Collecting Code, version 2 (PDF, Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre) | 1 passed |
| 115 | But visible water-worn ammonites, especially on Monmouth Beach, must be left, and the ammonite pavement must not be damaged. | Undercliffs Fossil Collecting Code, version 2 (PDF, Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre) | 2 passed |
| 116 | Power tools must not be used there without consent from Natural England. | Undercliffs Fossil Collecting Code, version 2 (PDF, Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre) | 1 passed |
| 117 | If you use a hammer or other tools, wear goggles. | West Dorset Fossil Collecting Code of Conduct (PDF, Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre) | 1 passed |
| 118 | The Natural History Museum’s advice: make sure you have permission for where you go and what you take, and look up the rules for each place. At some sites you may look but not collect. | Natural History Museum: How to find fossils on the beach | 2 passed |
| 119 | Never dig fossils out of cliffs: it makes them even less stable, and you would need the landowner’s permission. | Natural History Museum: How to find fossils on the beach | 2 passed |
| 120 | If an exciting fossil is stuck in a cliff, take a photo, note where it is and tell a museum. | Natural History Museum: How to find fossils on the beach | 1 passed |
| 121 | In some places the tide rises much faster than you might expect and can cut you off, so always have a way back. | Natural History Museum: How to find fossils on the beach | 2 passed |
| 122 | The museum’s guide says the best tools are your eyes: in most places many fossils can be found loose on the beach and simply picked up. | Natural History Museum: How to find fossils on the beach | 2 passed |
| 123 | Its suggested kit is sturdy walking boots with good ankle support, a rucksack for your finds and a first aid kit. | Natural History Museum: How to find fossils on the beach | 3 passed |
| 124 | And leave some fossils for other people to find: you don’t have to collect everything. | Natural History Museum: How to find fossils on the beach | 1 passed |
| 125 | Mary Anning was born in Lyme Regis in 1799. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning, the unsung hero of fossil discovery | 1 passed |
| 126 | Her birthday was 21 May 1799. | BBC News: Ammonite, who was the real Mary Anning? (17 October 2020) | 1 passed |
| 127 | The family were very poor dissenters, Protestants outside the Church of England. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning, the unsung hero of fossil discovery | 2 passed |
| 128 | The Natural History Museum says only Mary and her older brother Joseph, out of nine children, survived to adulthood. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning, the unsung hero of fossil discovery | 1 passed |
| 129 | The Geological Society says her parents had at least nine children, and only two grew up. | Geological Society: Mary Anning, first discoveries | 1 passed |
| 130 | BBC News says she was one of 10 children, and eight of her nine brothers and sisters died before adulthood. | BBC News: Ammonite, who was the real Mary Anning? (17 October 2020) | 2 passed |
| 131 | Her father Richard was a cabinetmaker and amateur fossil collector who taught her to find and clean fossils, and sold them from his shop. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning, the unsung hero of fossil discovery | 2 passed |
| 132 | By the age of five or six, Mary was helping him collect fossils. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning, the unsung hero of fossil discovery | 1 passed |
| 133 | She had little formal education but could read, and taught herself geology and anatomy. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning, the unsung hero of fossil discovery | 1 passed |
| 134 | She even dissected modern fish and cuttlefish to understand the fossils she found better. | BBC News: Ammonite, who was the real Mary Anning? (17 October 2020) | 1 passed |
| 135 | Richard died in 1810, and Mary helped pay off the family’s debts by selling her finds. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning, the unsung hero of fossil discovery | 2 passed |
| 136 | Mary later told a visitor that her father died when she was ten. Wandering the shore, she picked up a fossil and showed it to a lady collector, who gave her half a crown. | Geological Society: Mary Anning, first discoveries | 2 passed |
| 137 | BBC News says she was 11 when he died. | BBC News: Ammonite, who was the real Mary Anning? (17 October 2020) | 1 passed |
| 138 | Lyme Regis was especially rich in ammonites, then called ‘Ammon’s horn’, and in belemnites, the ‘devil’s fingers’. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning, the unsung hero of fossil discovery | 2 passed |
| 139 | In the Napoleonic Wars, people holidayed at home, and tourists flocked to seaside towns like Lyme Regis. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning, the unsung hero of fossil discovery | 1 passed |
| 140 | In autumn 1811, when Mary was 12, Joseph found a strange fossil skull. In November 1812 Mary dug out the outline of its five-metre skeleton, the Natural History Museum says. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning, the unsung hero of fossil discovery | 2 passed |
| 141 | BBC News says that in 1811, aged just 12, Mary discovered a 5.2 m (17 ft) skeleton, now known to be an ichthyosaur. | BBC News: Ammonite, who was the real Mary Anning? (17 October 2020) | 1 passed |
| 142 | By 1820 it had been recognised as an extinct marine reptile and named Ichthyosaurus, ‘fish lizard’. It was the first ichthyosaur to be studied scientifically. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning, the unsung hero of fossil discovery | 2 passed |
| 143 | Today the specimen is called Temnodontosaurus platyodon, and it is in the Natural History Museum’s collections. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning’s fossils | 1 passed |
| 144 | In December 1823 Mary found the first complete skeleton of a Plesiosaurus, ‘near to reptile’. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning, the unsung hero of fossil discovery | 1 passed |
| 145 | The great French naturalist Georges Cuvier at first thought it might be a fake. The Geological Society of London held a special meeting about it, but Mary was not invited. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning, the unsung hero of fossil discovery | 2 passed |
| 146 | Once convinced, Cuvier sent someone to buy a specimen for Paris. Mary bought one from another collector and sold it to him for three times the price. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning’s fossils | 1 passed |
| 147 | In December 1828 she found a jumble of bones with wings and a long tail: the first pterosaur found outside Germany, now known as Dimorphodon. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning, the unsung hero of fossil discovery | 2 passed |
| 148 | She also pioneered the study of coprolites, which is fossilised poo. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning, the unsung hero of fossil discovery | 1 passed |
| 149 | In 1830 her childhood friend Henry De la Beche painted Duria Antiquior, ‘A More Ancient Dorset’, and sold prints to raise money for her. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning, the unsung hero of fossil discovery | 2 passed |
| 150 | It was the very first picture of prehistoric life based on fossil evidence, the start of what is now called palaeoart. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning, the unsung hero of fossil discovery | 2 passed |
| 151 | Male scientists who bought her fossils often didn’t credit her in their papers. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning, the unsung hero of fossil discovery | 1 passed |
| 152 | The Geological Society did not admit women as Fellows until 1908. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning, the unsung hero of fossil discovery | 1 passed |
| 153 | Because of her gender, she was never a member of the Geological Society. | Geological Society: Mary Anning and the Geological Society (online exhibition) | 1 passed |
| 154 | As far as we know, her only published writing is a short extract from a letter, printed in 1839. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning’s fossils | 1 passed |
| 155 | Mary Anning died in 1847, aged only 47, still short of money. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning, the unsung hero of fossil discovery | 1 passed |
| 156 | Henry De la Beche, by then president of the Geological Society, read a tribute to her at a meeting, breaking the society’s members-only tradition. | BBC News: Ammonite, who was the real Mary Anning? (17 October 2020) | 1 passed |
| 157 | Three years later, members of the Geological Society paid for a stained-glass window in her memory in the church where she is buried. | BBC News: Ammonite, who was the real Mary Anning? (17 October 2020) | 1 passed |
| 158 | She is buried at St Michael the Archangel Church in Lyme Regis. | BBC News: Ammonite, who was the real Mary Anning? (17 October 2020) | 1 passed |
| 159 | Lyme Regis Museum stands, by chance, on the site of her birthplace and family home. | BBC News: Ammonite, who was the real Mary Anning? (17 October 2020) | 1 passed |
| 160 | In 2022 a statue of Mary and her dog was unveiled in Lyme Regis, after a campaign started by 11-year-old Evie Swire. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning, the unsung hero of fossil discovery | 1 passed |
| 161 | She has also been honoured with special Royal Mail stamps and a 50p coin. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning, the unsung hero of fossil discovery | 1 passed |
| 162 | Several species are named after her, but only one, the fish Acrodus anningiae, during her lifetime. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning’s fossils | 1 passed |
| 163 | In 2015 a study proposed that one of her ichthyosaurs was a new species, now called Ichthyosaurus anningae. | Natural History Museum: Mary Anning’s fossils | 1 passed |
| 164 | The 2020 film Ammonite, with Kate Winslet as Mary, is not a biopic: its director says so. | BBC News: Ammonite, who was the real Mary Anning? (17 October 2020) | 2 passed |
| 165 | A portrait shows her with her dog Tray, looking east towards Lyme Regis and Golden Cap. | IUGS Geoheritage: Jurassic Coast, Lyme Regis | 1 passed |
| 166 | In England, ammonite fossils were called snakestones, because they look like coiled snakes turned to stone. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 1 passed |
| 167 | But ammonites weren’t reptiles at all. They were sea-dwelling molluscs. | Natural History Museum: What is an ammonite? | 1 passed |
| 168 | Snakestone stories came mainly from two places where ammonites are common: Whitby in Yorkshire and Keynsham in Somerset. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 1 passed |
| 169 | In his book Britannia of 1586, William Camden wrote that if you broke them open you found ‘stony serpents, wreathed up in circles, but eternally without heads’. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 2 passed |
| 170 | To back up the legend, and to sell them more easily, Victorians carved snake heads on ammonites. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 1 passed |
| 171 | The British Geological Survey says local collectors and dealers often carved heads on them. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 1 passed |
| 172 | In Whitby the legend goes back to Saint Hilda (614–680), the Saxon abbess who was to found an abbey there. She is said to have turned the town’s snakes to stone and thrown them off the cliffs. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 2 passed |
| 173 | The ammonite Hildoceras bifrons, one of the commonest at Whitby, is named after her. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 2 passed |
| 174 | Sir Walter Scott told the story in his poem Marmion: ‘Of thousand snakes, each one / Was changed into a coil of stone’. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 2 passed |
| 175 | Whitby’s coat of arms includes three snakestones. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 1 passed |
| 176 | Some versions bring in St Cuthbert, a seventh-century monk said to have cast a beheading curse on the snakes, which explains why snakestones have no heads. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 1 passed |
| 177 | In Keynsham the story is that St Keyna turned the serpents of the woods to stone by prayer. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 2 passed |
| 178 | Other stories said snakestones had once been fairies, turned into snakes and then into stone. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 1 passed |
| 179 | The Natural History Museum says early Greeks linked ammonites with the horned god Jupiter Ammon and called them Cornu Ammonis, ‘horns of Ammon’, the origin of the name ammonite. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 1 passed |
| 180 | The British Geological Survey says ammonites take their name from the Egyptian god Amun, whom the Greeks called Zeus Ammon and showed with curling ram’s horns. | British Geological Survey: Ammonites | 2 passed |
| 181 | Ammonites have fascinated people since at least the Middle Stone Age, and have been found on every continent. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 2 passed |
| 182 | Ancient Romans believed that sleeping with a golden, pyrite ammonite from Ethiopia under the pillow could help you dream the future. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 1 passed |
| 183 | In Hindu culture, black stones holding ammonites are called saligrams, and are treasured because they look like the disc, or chakra, held by the god Vishnu. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 2 passed |
| 184 | True saligrams come only from the valley of the Gandaki River in Nepal and northern India. Sanskrit texts mention them over 2,200 years ago. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 2 passed |
| 185 | In Chinese folklore ammonites were Jiaoshih, horn stones, because they look like coiled rams’ horns. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 1 passed |
| 186 | The 11th-century Chinese scientist Su Sung described a ‘stone-serpent’ shaped like a coiled snake with no head or tail-tip, adding that nobody knew what animal had been turned to stone. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 2 passed |
| 187 | The Blackfoot people of North America called ammonites insikim, buffalo stones, because they look like sleeping bison, and used them in ceremonies to bring bison herds in. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 1 passed |
| 188 | It was believed buffalo stones could have babies, perhaps because ammonites tend to break apart along their septa. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 2 passed |
| 189 | In New Guinea, the Tifalmin people of the Upper Sepik River used ammonites as charms for hunting and farming. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 1 passed |
| 190 | Farmers in Germany’s Harz Mountains called them dragonstones, and put one in the milk pail to bring back a cow’s milk. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 1 passed |
| 191 | In parts of Scotland they were crampstones, used on cows with cramp. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 1 passed |
| 192 | Ammonites have been collected more than 5,000 metres above sea level in the Himalayas. | Natural History Museum: Snakestones, ammonites in myth, magic and science | 1 passed |