Mary Anning with her dog Tray, painted before 1842. The Golden Cap outcrop can be seen in the background. Anning (1799 -1847) was a English fossil collector, dealer and palaeontologist who became known around the world for a number of important finds she made in the Jurassic age marine fossil beds at Lyme Regis where she lived. Her work contributed to the fundamental changes in scientific thinking about prehistoric life and the history of the earth that occurred in the early 19th century. Mary Anning lived through a life of privation and hardship to become what one source called "the greatest fossilist the world ever knew." Anning is credited with finding the first specimen of Ichthyosaurus acknowledged by the Geological Society in London. She also discovered the first nearly complete example of the Plesiosaurus; the first British Pterodactylus macronyx, a fossil flying reptile; the Squaloraja fossil fish, a transitional link between sharks and rays; and finally the Plesiosaurus macrocephalus. She died of breast cancer in 1847.