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. Vegavis was the size of a ...

The primitive bird it belonged to – a goose-like creature called Vegavis iaai – would have coexisted with non-avian dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period, 66-68 million years ago.

The primitive bird it belonged to – a goose-like creature called Vegavis iaai – would have coexisted with non-avian dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period, 66-68 million years ago.

Conclusion An artist’s reconstruction of what Vegavis iaai may have looked like. (Winton 2025) Dinosaur fossils have continually transformed our understanding of prehistory, offering a glimpse into an ...

Mark Witton / Handout via Reuters A Cretaceous Period bird called Vegavis iaai dives for fish in the shallow ocean off the coast of the Antarctic peninsula in this illustration released Feb. 5.

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 for company. Credit: Mark ...

A recent study found a nearly complete skull in Antarctica that may belong to an ancient ancestor of ducks and geese called Vegavis iaai. This species lived around 68 million years ago, during the ...

An analysis of the skull of the roughly 69-million-year-old Vegavis iaai bird provided insight into the species’ place on the evolutionary tree of birds, UT researchers said in a collaborative study ...

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 for company. Credit: Mark ...

An artistic depiction of a pair of Vegavis iaai, the earliest known modern bird at 69 million years ago, foraging for fish and other animals in the Late Cretaceous ocean off the coast of the Antarctic ...

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.

Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid impact near the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico ended the era of non-avian dinosaurs. But amid the global upheaval, certain birds – and the group that gave rise to ...