The fossilized skull of a bird called Vegavis, which lived in the Antarctic some 68.7 million years ago, confirms it was an early member of the waterfowl group. However, the skull also suggests ...

A near complete skull fossil found in Antarctica has revealed the oldest known modern bird — a mallard duck-size creature related to the waterfowl that live by lakes and oceans today ...

The new skull exhibits a long, pointed beak and a brain shape unique among all known birds previously discovered from the Mesozoic Era. The Late Cretaceous modern (crown) bird, Vegavis iaai, is diving ...

A near complete skull fossil found in Antarctica has revealed the oldest known modern bird — a mallard duck-size creature related to the waterfowl that live by lakes and oceans today ...

and the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Frankfurt report on the bird's fully preserved skull in the journal Palaeontologia Electronica. The fossil was unearthed in the ...

An Antarctic discovery might offer new insights into the origins of modern birds. The skull, from an ancient relative of ducks and geese known as Vegavis iaai, suggests that the key characteristics of ...

An international team of researchers report on the bird's fully preserved skull. The fossil was unearthed in the 1950s in a former lignite mining area in the Geiseltal in Germany. It was initially ...

The fossilized 69-million-year-old skull of the oldest known modern bird has been discovered. The early relatives of ducks and geese lived in Antarctica at around the same time Tyrannosaurus rex ...