Paleontologists discover fossilized ovarian follicles in three birds from Early Cretaceous

(Phys.org) —A team of paleontologists with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing has discovered what are believed to be fossilized ovarian follicles in three birds from approximately 125 million years ago. As they describe in their paper published in the journal Nature, one of the birds appears to be a known type—Jeholornis—a bird from the Early Cretaceous that retained some non-avian features. The other two specimens were not well enough preserved to identify.