"Few birds are as likely to start as many arguments among paleontologists as 'vegavis,'" said professor Christopher Torres.

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.

Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid impact triggered the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs. Yet, some early birds, including the ancestors of modern waterfowl, survived. A new discovery from Antarctica provides fresh insight into their evolution.

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.

Digital reconstruction of the Late Cretaceous (~69 million years old) crown bird Vegavis iaai that was completed following high-resolution micro-computed tomography of a fossil-bearing concretion discovered on Vega Island, Antarctic Peninsula. Credit: Joseph Groenke (Ohio University) and Christopher Torres (University of the Pacific), 2025.

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.

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.

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.

Near the end of the age of dinosaurs, a bird resembling today's loons and grebes dove for fish and other prey in the perilous waters off Antarctica. Thanks to a nearly complete fossil skull, scientists now have identified this waterfowl as the oldest-known member of the lineage spanning all birds alive today.

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,