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 ...

By James WoodfordA 69-million-year-old skull found in Antarctica has been identified as a relative of geese and ducks, making it the oldest known modern bird.It belongs to a species that was first ...

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

The fossil, a nearly complete, 69-million-year-old skull, belongs to an extinct bird named Vegavis iaai and was collected ...

Vegavis was first described two decades ago, at which time it was argued to be an early member of the modern birds—but more recent analyses cast doubt on this suggestion.

The mixture of archaic and modern skeletal traits in the original Vegavis specimen also made it difficult to place, said Chase Brownstein, a paleontologist at Yale University who was not involved ...

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

Vegavis’ long beak and brain shape place it in the group that includes all modern birds and represents the earliest evidence of birds’ eventual widespread distribution across the planet.

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.

An artist’s interpretation of Vegavis iaai diving for fish in the shallow ocean off the coast of the Antarctic peninsula, with ammonites and plesiosaurs for company. Disclaimer: AAAS and ...