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.

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,

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

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.

A 69-million-year-old fossilized skull unearthed in Antarctica could rewrite the history of modern birds. The nearly complete skull belongs to Vegavis iaai, a prehistoric waterfowl species that lived alongside Tyrannosaurus rex at the end of the Cretaceous period.