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Michael Frese

This artificially colored scanning electron microscopy image shows four liverwort spores (Cingulasporites ornatus). These spores and others can act as references for the age of fossil-bearing rocks, and they helped the researchers determine the age of the fossil site: between 11 and 16 million years old.

The McGraths Flat fossils include a bird feather, which fossilized so well that sacs of the pigment melanin are visible under an electron microscope’s high magnification.

Under magnification, this 0.8-inch-long longhorn beetle has a passenger: a small nematode attached to its body.

The McGraths Flat site also preserves many types of insects, including free-swimming dragonfly larvae called naiads, such as this fossil.

This fossil pinnule, or leaf subsection, likely came from a fern in the genus Lygodium. Even the plant's 10-micron-wide pores fossilized, visible under electron microscopy.

These isolated fossil flowers are thought to belong to Malvales, an order of more than 7,000 living plants that includes hibiscus and cacao.

This sawfly lived in what is now southeastern Australia between 16 and 11 million years ago, and grains of pollen are still preserved on its head—a snapshot of life in an ancient rainforest.