Loon-like waterfowl from dinosaur-era Antarctica is oldest 'modern' bird
Near the end of the age of dinosaurs, a bird resembling today's loons and grebes dove for fish and other prey in the perilous waters off Antarctica. Thanks to a nearly complete fossil skull, scientists now have identified this waterfowl as the oldest-known member of the lineage spanning all birds alive today.
With its glaciers and sub-zero temperatures, Antarctica hardly seems like a place of refuge. However, the now icy continent ...
A few fossilized body parts hinted at an enigmatic bird's close ties to waterfowl like ducks and geese. A newfound skull may bolster that idea.
The skull, from an ancient relative of ducks and geese known as Vegavis iaai, suggests that the key characteristics of modern birds were already in place 69 million years ago. Birds evolved from ...
A new study in Nature describing a fossil of a nearly complete and intact bird skull from Antarctica is shedding light on the ...
Learn more about Vegavis iaai, an ancient ancestor of modern-day ducks, and one of the earliest modern birds ever discovered.
Paleontologists have been arguing whether modern birds developed before or after the infamous asteroid for decades. Now, a ...
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