Sixty-six million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous Period, an asteroid impact near the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico ...

In a nutshell A newly discovered 69-million-year-old bird skull from Antarctica proves that modern birds were already diverse ...

"Few birds are as likely to start as many arguments among paleontologists as 'vegavis,'" said professor Christopher Torres.

For decades, scientists have wondered at the taxonomy of Vegavis iaai—an ancient avian specimen that lived in what is now ...

With its glaciers and sub-zero temperatures, Antarctica hardly seems like a place of refuge. However, the now icy continent ...

A 68-million-year-old skull fossil found in Antarctica has revealed the oldest known modern bird, which was likely related to ...

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.

Learn more about Vegavis iaai, an ancient ancestor of modern-day ducks, and one of the earliest modern birds ever discovered.

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 ...

Antarctica has been called the ‘final frontier’ for humanity’s understanding of life when dinosaurs roamed the planet ...

Location matters, as Antarctica may have served as a refuge ... Sixty-six million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous Period, an asteroid impact near the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico triggered ...

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. Sixty-six ...