ArticleCommunications biology2020
Confirmation of ovarian follicles in an enantiornithine (Aves) from the Jehol biota using soft tissue analyses.
Article in Communications biology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Insights into the early evolution of modern avian physiology from fossilized soft tissues from the Mesozoic.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- A new neornithischian dinosaur from the Upper Jurassic Tiaojishan Formation of northern China.PeerJ · 2025Article
- The diet of early birds based on modern and fossil evidence and a new framework for its reconstruction.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2021Review
- Nuclear preservation in the cartilage of the Jehol dinosaur Caudipteryx.Communications biology · 2021Article
- Reanalysis of putative ovarian follicles suggests that Early Cretaceous birds were feeding not breeding.Scientific reports · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The remains of ovarian follicles reported in nine specimens of basal birds represents one of the most remarkable examples of soft-tissue preservation in the Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota. This discovery was immediately contested and the structures alternatively interpreted as ingested seeds. Fragments of the purported follicles preserved in an enantiornithine (STM10-12) were extracted and subjected to multiple high-resolution analyses. The structures in STM10-12 possess the histological and histochemical characteristics of smooth muscles fibers intertwined together with collagen fibers, resembling the contractile structure in the perifollicular membrane (PFM) of living birds. Fossilized blood vessels, very abundant in extant PFMs, are also preserved. Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy shows the preserved tissues primarily underwent alumino-silicification, with minor mineralization via iron oxides. No evidence of plant tissue was found. These results confirm the original interpretation as follicles within the left ovary, supporting the interpretation that the right ovary was functionally lost early in avian evolution.
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