Known as Vegavis iaai, the bird thrived in late-Cretaceous Antarctica, then a tropical paradise. About a million years before the asteroid that wiped out 75% of life on Earth, it went extinct.

The nearly complete skull of Vegavis iaai, a duck-sized bird that lived 69 million years ago, reveals that modern birds — those with toothless beaks and specialized brains — were already ...

The 68 million-year-old fossil belongs to an extinct species of bird known as Vegavis iaai that lived at the end of the Cretaceous period, when Tyrannosaurus rex dominated North America and just ...

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 ...

Some 66 million years ago, when dinosaurs such as T. rex still roamed the Earth, an ancient bird dubbed Vegavis iaai soared high in the sky. While some of its close cousins — like the T. rex ...

The 68 million-year-old fossil belongs to an extinct species of bird known as Vegavis iaai that lived at the end of the Cretaceous period, when Tyrannosaurus rex dominated North America and just ...

Life Ancient relative of geese is the earliest known modern bird A newly analysed fossil skull settles a palaeontological debate over Vegavis iaai, confirming it as a relative of ducks and geese ...

A 68-million-year-old Antarctic fossil revealed the oldest known modern bird, Vegavis iaai, a duck-sized diver with traits linking it to today’s waterfowl. | Trending ...

The team of scientists says the "Vegavis Iaai" bird that lived in Antarctica's Vega Island more than 70 million years ago probably sounded like a modern-day duck.

Journal reference: Nature DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08390-0 Vegavis iaai was an ancient relative of ducks and geese, but it dived for fish like grebes or loons Mark Witton ...