The fossil records so far support the latter version, known as the "big bang" theory of bird evolution. But if the new find, known as Vegavis iaai, really is a relative of the duck, it would lend ...

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 ...

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. It could ...

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.

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. Read the full story here ...

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. A fossil unearthed in Antarctica has ...

For decades, scientists have wondered at the taxonomy of Vegavis iaai— an ancient avian specimen that lived in what is now Antarctica during the late Cretaceous period. A new study, in which ...

A newly discovered fossil in Antarctica, estimated to be 68 million years old, reveals the oldest known modern bird, Vegavis iaai. This duck-sized bir ...

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. (Credit: Mark Witton) ...

An artist's impression of "Vegavis iaai"—an early ancestor of ducks and geese that lived during the Late Cretaceous. Mark Witton/Ohio University Part of the reason why Vegavis ' place in the ...

Scientists identify Vegavis iaai, a 69 million-year-old bird from Antarctica, as the oldest-known relative of modern birds, shedding light on avian evolution.