Previous Vegavis fossil specimens also lacked a complete skull, said study coauthor Patrick O’Connor, a professor of anatomical sciences at Ohio University.

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 ...

Previous Vegavis fossil specimens also lacked a complete skull, said study coauthor Patrick O’Connor, a professor of anatomical sciences at Ohio University.

The first Vegavis fossil was found in 1993 and named 12 years later. However, the first examples were partial specimens ...

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 ...

The discovery of a remarkably near-complete fossil skull of the earliest known modern bird may help settle a long-standing debate about the evolutionary history of our feathered friends.

Previous Vegavis fossil specimens also lacked a complete skull, said study coauthor Patrick O’Connor, a professor of anatomical sciences at Ohio University.

Together, these features place Vegavis in the group that includes all modern birds, and the fossil skull represents “the earliest member of this entire radiation that we see around us today ...

A newly discovered fossil in Antarctica, estimated to be 68 million years old, reveals the oldest known modern bird, Vegavis iaai. This duck-sized bird had a mixture of modern and ancient features ...

All the known Vegavis fossils date from 69.2-68.4 million years ago, just three million years before the world changed. Whether it was Vegavis itself, a direct descendent or a sibling species that ...

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — A near complete skull fossil found in Antarctica has revealed the oldest known modern bird — a mallard duck-size creature related to the waterfowl that live by lakes ...

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — A near complete skull fossil found in Antarctica has revealed the oldest known modern bird — a mallard duck-size creature related to the waterfowl that live by lakes ...