For more than a century, a small organ in the female reproductive system was considered useless, and its illustrations disappeared from anatomy textbooks. But a recent study suggests it may play a key role in fertility and ovarian health.
The organ called the "rete ovarii" was first discovered in 1870. It is a small structure on the ovary consisting of three regions that persists from birth to adulthood. Early editions of "Gray's Anatomy" included illustrations of it, but it later disappeared from medical textbooks, as doctors considered it a "useless evolutionary relic," and it was completely removed from modern medical books over the past decades as if it never existed.
In 2024, a research team published a paper titled "Rediscovering the Ovarian Reticulum, an Ovarian Auxiliary Structure," describing their examination of the development and function of this organ in mice. When a fluid was injected into one of its regions, they found that it flowed into the ovary, suggesting a potential role in its function. They also found that its cells are closely connected to blood vessels and nerves and are located near immune cells that protect the body. Furthermore, they discovered receptors for reproductive hormones such as estrogen and progesterone, and proteins involved in egg maturation whose activity increases with rising estrogen levels.
"There is still so much we can't even begin to understand about female anatomy," says study co-author Dilara Anbarji of the University of Michigan. "I hope this will encourage further research to reassess what we don't already know about the ovary."
The researchers hope the findings will provide evidence about how this structure contributes to fertility and ovarian health.
This discovery has resurfaced on social media, causing a huge uproar, with many women sharply criticizing the historically male-dominated medical research establishment for ignoring a structure present in the female body and "erasing" it from medical textbooks.
Comedian Michelle Wolf also described the news as "outrageous " in a TikTok video that garnered over 130,000 likes, saying: "The funny thing is, our bodies didn't obviously erase it, because if our bodies erased the things men want to erase, we wouldn't have brains."
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