ENGLAND: On Church Cliff Beach in Lyme Regis, a beachcomber recently found a small metal token inscribed “MARY ANNING MDCCCX” on one side and “LYME REGIS AGE XI” on the other. Anning is a legend in paleontology—discoverer of the first Ichthyosaurus and the first nearly complete Plesiosaurus. Researchers suspect the token might have been a lost gift from her father, a cabinetmaker and the source of her passion for fossil-collecting, on the occasion of her 11th birthday, in 1810, the same year he died. —Samir S. Patel