A recently analyzed near-complete fossil skull found in Antarctica has revealed Vegavis iaai to be the oldest known modern bird, according to a study published in Nature.

A new and nearly complete skull of Vegavis iaai discovered in Antarctica suggests that modern birds originated before the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.

A 68-million-year-old skull fossil found in Antarctica has revealed the oldest known modern bird, which was likely related to the waterfowl that live by lakes and oceans today, according to new research.

With its glaciers and sub-zero temperatures, Antarctica hardly seems like a place of refuge. However, the now icy continent might have been just that for the early ancestors of today’s living waterbirds –especially after an asteroid slammed into the Earth.

The near-complete fossil skull, unearthed on Vega Island near the Antarctic Peninsula, reveals a bird that thrived in the challenging waters off Antarctica roughly 69 million years ago, just three million years before the dinosaur-killing asteroid impact.

Scientists in Antarctica claim they have may have discovered the oldest modern bird ever found. The fossil which is a skull is believed to be 69-million-years old and belonged to a species called Vegavis iaai.

A newly analysed fossil skull settles a palaeontological debate over Vegavis iaai, confirming it as a relative of ducks and geese that lived 69 million years ago

A near-perfect fossilized skull discovered in Antarctica reveals the bridge between prehistoric and modern birds, a new study has found. The fossil is a specimen of a species called Vegavis iaai, which lived around 69 million years ago – more than 2 million years before the mass extinction that wiped out all non-avian dinosaurs.

Paleontologists have been arguing whether modern birds developed before or after the infamous asteroid for decades. Now, a team of researchers has analyzed a 69-million-year-old fossil belonging to the long-extinct bird Vegavis iaai that could put the discussion to rest.

In 1992, a paleontologist unearthed the fossil of a prehistoric bird called "Vegavis iaai" in Antarctica and hypothesized that it was an early relative of today's ducks and geese. However, because the fossil was missing a skull,

In the icy wilderness of Antarctica, where glaciers now dominate the landscape, scientists have unearthed a fossil that rewrites the story of modern birds. The nearly complete skull of Vegavis iaai, a duck-sized bird that lived 69 million years ago,