News Summary

Author: Asher Elbein
Published on: 05/02/2025 | 00:00:00

AI Summary:
The Search for the Original Silly Goose in the Fossil Record Advertisement You have been granted access, use your keyboard to continue reading. Scientists may have finally found Earth’s first fowl. It started in 1993 on Vega Island, a frigid, windswept rock off the Antarctic Peninsula. Nearly 20 years later, an Antarctic expedition turned up a bird skull matched with Vegavis iaai. Vegavis had the toothless beak and brain shape characteristic of modern birds. The skull found in 2011 helped breach this prehistoric logjam. But despite the bird’s loony body plan and head, fine details of its skull show specific traits that suggest waterfowl. The fact that a bird with such modern features was around by the end of the Cretaceous period suggests that other major lineages of living birds were likely present as well, says Gerardo lvarez Herrera. It’s possible that further exploration will uncover the ancestors of ostriches, fowls, neoaves and ducks that may have roamed alongside non-avian dinosaurs.

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