Paleontologists have found the first complete skull of a controversial prehistoric bird. Known as Vegavis iaai, the bird thrived in late-Cretaceous Antarctica, then a tropical paradise. About a ...

Vegavis iaai was first reported 20 years ago by Dr. Julia Clarke of The University of Texas at Austin and several colleagues, who proposed it as an early member of modern birds evolutionarily ...

Vegavis iaai may be just one of many undiscovered bird species that survived the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. Future ...

An illustration of the Vegavis iaai diving for fish off the coast of the Antarctic peninsula. Mark Witton, 2025. The Chicxulub impactor smashed into Earth, wiped out around 75 percent of our ...

Around 20 years ago, a team of paleontologists identified Vegavis iaai for the first time, citing a fossil from Antarctica, around 68 million years to 66 million years old.At the time of the ...

The duck-like Vegavis iaai had strong jaws for snatching fish. Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Search for: ...

An illustration of "Vegavis iaai's" skeleton, with preserved bones depicted in white. Christopher Torres, University of the Pacific. Birds from elsewhere around the globe that date back to the end ...

While Vegavis resembled present-day waterfowl in some ways, other features didn’t fit the mold. For instance, the study noted that the skull preserves traces of a slender, pointed beak powered ...

Vegavis is one of only two modern birds known from the age of dinosaurs. The other one, Asteriornis maastrichtensis, lived about 67 million years ago in what is now Belgium.

While Vegavis has features that clearly mark it as being in the same group of waterfowl as ducks and geese, it would have looked very different, says O’Connor.The bird’s beak shape, jaw ...

An artist’s interpretation of Vegavis iaai diving for fish in the shallow ocean off the coast of the Antarctic peninsula, with ammonites and plesiosaurs for company. Disclaimer: AAAS and ...

The Late Cretaceous modern (crown) bird,Vegavis iaai, pursuit diving for fish in the shallow ocean off the coast of the Antarctic peninsula, with ammonites and plesiosaurs forcompany.