
Skull fossil discovery reveals oldest known modern bird
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, a new study has found.
The 68 million-year-old fossil belongs to an extinct species of bird known as Vegavis iaai that lived at the end of the Cretaceous period, when Tyrannosaurus rex dominated North America and just before a city-size asteroid hit Earth, dooming the dinosaurs to extinction.
Birds that lived among the dinosaurs were barely recognizable when compared with today's bird species. Many sported bizarre features such as toothed beaks and long, bony tails.
Vegavis, however, would have been ducklike in size and similar ecologically to aquatic bird species such as loons, said Christopher Torres, an assistant professor of biology at the University of the Pacific in California and lead author of the study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
'So this bird was a foot-propelled pursuit diver. It used its legs to propel itself underwater as it swam, and something that we were able to observe directly from this new skull was it had jaw musculature (that) was associated with snapping its mouth shut underwater in pursuit of fish. And that is a lifestyle that we observe broadly among loons and grebes,' he said.
Paleontologists first described Vegavis 20 years ago, but many were skeptical that it represented a modern or crown bird species. Most modern bird fossils that had been unearthed at that point dated to after the dinosaur-killing asteroid struck off the coast of what's now Mexico 66 million years ago. Many scientists assumed that modern-looking birds began to evolve after and perhaps in response to the mass extinction.
Previous Vegavis fossil specimens also lacked a complete skull, said study coauthor Patrick O'Connor, a professor of anatomical sciences at Ohio University. Skulls are where the most characteristic features of modern birds, such as a lack of teeth and an enlarged premaxillary bone in the upper beak, can be identified.
The fossil examined in the study, collected during a 2011 expedition by the Antarctic Peninsula Paleontology Project, was found encased in rock that dated back 68.4 to 69.2 million years and displayed modern characteristics, such as a toothless beak, according to the study.
'The new fossil shows Vegavis is undoubtedly a modern bird (something that was challenged in the past) and is an exceptional find preserving a strange and surprising morphology,' said Juan Benito Moreno, a fellow in the department of earth sciences at the University of Cambridge and an expert on fossil birds, in an email.
'The new skull of Vegavis shows a very specialized morphology for diving and fish eating, more so than I would have expected,' added Moreno, who was not involved in the study but was involved in the discovery of the only other known modern bird species from the Cretaceous.
The brain shape revealed by the new fossil, which researchers scanned using computerized tomography to create a three-dimensional reconstruction, was also characteristic of modern birds, according to the study.
Together, these features place Vegavis in the group that includes all modern birds, and the fossil skull represents 'the earliest member of this entire radiation that we see around us today, that consists of 11,000 bird species,' O'Connor said.
While Vegavis resembled present-day waterfowl in some ways, other features didn't fit the mold. For instance, the study noted that the skull preserves traces of a slender, pointed beak powered by enhanced jaw muscles, a feature that is more like diving birds than other known waterfowl.
'Antarctica at 69 million years ago didn't look like it did today. It was actually forested. It was a cool, temperate climate based on most of our modeling, and this animal, we recovered it in a marine rock unit so we would envision that it was doing this pursuit diving in a nearshore, marine environment,' O'Connor added.
Torres, who was a postdoctoral fellow studying avian paleontology at Ohio University when he conducted the research, said the discovery of the Vegavis fossil in Antarctica and a fossil of an extinct bird species known as Conflicto antarcticus from a nearby location dating from shortly after dinosaurs' extinction would allow paleontologists to investigate how some animals survived the cataclysmic event.
'What happens to the survivors? What determines, number one, what a survivor is, and number two, what are the survivors going to look like after one of these catastrophic events?' he said.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Paleontologists dig through fossilized dino guts to see what's inside
Nothing quite fits the moniker 'gentle giant' more than sauropods. These gargantuan dinosaurs could reach up to 123 feet long and weigh up to seven tons. Sauropods have long been believed to be herbivores, munching on leaves during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Now, for the first time, a team of paleontologists have studied the abdomen of a sauropod with its gut contents still intact that lived roughly 94 to 101 million years ago. The finding confirms that they were in fact herbivores–and did not really chew their food. Instead, sauropods relied on gut microbes to break down its food. The findings are detailed in a study published June 9 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology. 'No genuine sauropod gut contents had ever been found anywhere before, despite sauropods being known from fossils found on every continent and despite the group being known to span at least 130 million years of time,' Stephen Poropat, a study co-author and paleontologist at Curtin University in Australia, said in a statement. 'This finding confirms several hypotheses about the sauropod diet that had been made based on studies of their anatomy and comparisons with modern-day animals.' Fossilized dinosaur bones can only tell us so much about these extinct animals. Paleontologists can use trackways and footprints to learn about their movement and preserved gut contents called cololites to put together what their diets may have looked like. Understanding the diet is critical for understanding their biology and the role they played in ancient ecosystems, but very few dinosaur fossils have been found with cololites. These are gut contents that have yet to become poop–or coprolites. In particular, sauropod cololites have remained elusive. With their gargantuan sizes, these dinosaurs may have been the most ecologically impactful terrestrial herbivores on the planet during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. With this lack of direct dietary evidence, the specifics of sauropod herbivory—including the plants that they ate—have mostly been theorized based largely on tooth wear, jaw shape and size, and neck length. But that changed in the summer of 2017. Staff and volunteers at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History were excavating a relatively complete subadult sauropod skeleton. This particular Diamantinasaurus matildae specimen lived during the mid-Cretaceous period and was uncovered in the Winton Formation of Queensland, Australia. The team noticed an unusual, fractured rock layer that appeared to contain the sauropod's cololite with well-preserved plant fossils. The team analyzed the plant specimens within the cololite and found that sauropods likely only engaged in minimal oral processing of their food. Instead of chewing, their gut microbiota would ferment the plants to digest it. The cololite had a wide variety of plants, including foliage from conifers (cone-bearing seed plants), seed-fern fruiting bodies (plant structures that hold seeds), and leaves from angiosperms (flowering plants). From this, it looks like Diamantinasaurus was an indiscriminate, bulk feeder. 'The plants within show evidence of having been severed, possibly bitten, but have not been chewed, supporting the hypothesis of bulk feeding in sauropods,' said Poropat. The team also found chemical biomarkers of both angiosperms and gymnosperms—a group of woody, seed-producing plants that include conifers. [ Related: The mystery of why some dinosaurs got so enormous. ] 'This implies that at least some sauropods were not selective feeders, instead eating whatever plants they could reach and safely process,' Poropat said. 'These findings largely corroborate past ideas regarding the enormous influence that sauropods must have had on ecosystems worldwide during the Mesozoic Era.' Although it was not unexpected that the gut contents provided support for sauropod herbivory and bulk feeding, Poropat was surprised to find angiosperms in the dinosaur's gut. 'Angiosperms became approximately as diverse as conifers in Australia around 100 to 95 million years ago, when this sauropod was alive,' he says. 'This suggests that sauropods had successfully adapted to eat flowering plants within 40 million years of the first evidence of the presence of these plants in the fossil record.' Based on these findings, the team suggests that Diamantinasaurus likely fed on both low- and high-growing plants, at least before adulthood. As hatchlings, sauropods would have only been able to access food that was close to the ground. As they grew (and grew and grew), their viable food options also expanded. Additionally, the prevalence of small shoots, bracts, and seed pods in the cololite implies that subadult Diamantinasaurus likely targeted new growth portions of conifers and seed ferns. These portions of the plant are easier to digest. According to the authors, the strategy of indiscriminate bulk feeding likely served sauropods well for 130 million years. However, as with most studies, there are some important caveats and limitations. 'The primary limitation of this study is that the sauropod gut contents we describe constitute a single data point,' Poropat explained. 'These gut contents only tell us about the last meal or several meals of a single subadult sauropod individual.' We also don't know how the seasons affected diet, or if the plants preserved in this specific sauropod represent a diet typical of a healthy sauropod or a more stressed one. The specimen is also a subabult, which could mean that younger sauropods had this more than adults did. Despite the limitations, it offers an exciting look inside the stomachs of some of the largest creatures to ever live.


Forbes
2 days ago
- Forbes
Why The ‘Strawberry Moon' Will Be Lowest Until 2043 — And How To Photograph It
Tuesday's full strawberry moon occurs during two-year period known as the 'major lunar standstill" ... More or "lunistice," when a once-in 18.6-year event will create the lowest-hanging full moon since 2006 and until 2043. The full moon is seen here rising behind Stonehenge in England. (Photo by) The full strawberry moon will put on a dramatic show at moonrise on Tuesday, June 10 — low, luminous, and colored orange as it climbs into the southeastern sky. Get to an observing location that looks southeast — preferably low to the horizon — and at the specific time of moonrise where you are (during dusk), you'll see the red-orange orb rise before your eyes. Seen from the Northern Hemisphere, the full moon will rise far to the southeast, move across the sky close to the southern horizon, and set in the southwest close to dawn. It's happening because we're in the midst of a rare two-year period known as the 'major lunar standstill" or "lunistice," when a once-in 18.6-year event will create the lowest-hanging full moon since 2006 and until 2043. Earth's axis is tilted by 23.5 degrees with respect to the ecliptic, the path of the sun through the daytime sky, and, in effect, the plane of the solar system. That's what gives us seasons, and that's why planets are always found close to the ecliptic (hence the misused "planetary alignment" claims despite planets always being somewhat aligned with each other). The moon's orbit crosses the ecliptic twice each month, and when those crossings align with a new or full moon, eclipses can occur — hence the shared root in the words 'ecliptic' and 'eclipse.' While the sun's rise and set points vary throughout the year, changing by 47 degrees — and reaching the extreme points at the solstices — the moon's range is bigger, with that 5-degree tilt giving its rise and set points a 70-degree range near a major standstill, according to Griffith Observatory. Mount Coot-tha Lookout, Brisbane A major lunar standstill is a period when the northernmost and southernmost moonrise and moonset are furthest apart. Unlike a solstice (Latin for "sun stand still"), which lasts for one day, a major lunar standstill lasts for two years. These events are most noticeable during a full moon. Essentially, the swiveling and shifting orbit of the moon — a consequence of the sun's gravitational pull — is tilted at its maximum angle relative to the ecliptic. Every 18.6 years, the tilts combine to cause the moon to rise and set as much as 28.5° north or south of due east and west, respectively. Most people won't notice the major lunar standstill, but if you regularly watch the full moon rise from a particular place, go there — you'll get a shock when the moon rises at an extreme position much farther from where you might imagine it will rise. Imaging a full moon using a smartphone isn't easy, but it is possible to capture something special. First, switch off your flash and turn on HDR mode (if available) to better capture both the moon and the landscape as the light fades during dusk. Don't zoom in because digital zoom only blurs the details. Instead, frame the moon within a landscape for more impact, which is especially effective during this month's unusually far-southeast moonrise. If you use a manual photography app, stick to an ISO of 100 for a clean shot and experiment with slower (but not too slow) shutter speeds. A tripod will help, especially when using slow shutter speeds. However, if you don't have one, you can balance your phone on a wall or ledge. The key is to image it when it's low on the horizon and glowing orange. You've got a short window to capture that color, even with this low-hanging full moon, which will turn bright white as it lifts above the horizon. Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Resilience, a Private Japanese Spacecraft, Crash-Landed on the Moon
A Japanese spacecraft has probably crashed on the Moon, the second failed landing attempt for Tokyo-based private firm ispace. The HAKUTO-R Mission 2 (M2) lander — also called Resilience — began its landing sequence from a 100-kilometre-altitude orbit at 3.13am local time on 5 June. The craft was due to land near the centre of Mare Frigoris (Sea of Cold) at 4.17am. The ispace team said at a press conference that it lost contact with M2 when the craft was 192 metres above the Moon's surface and descending faster than expected. An attempt to reboot M2 was also unsuccessful. [Sign up for Today in Science, a free daily newsletter] M2 didn't receive measurements of the distance between itself and the lunar surface in time to slow down and reach its correct landing speed, the team said. 'It eventually slowed down, but not softly enough,' says Clive Neal, who studies the Moon at the University of Notre Dame in Indianapolis, US. He speculates that the failure was probably caused by a systems issue that wasn't identified and addressed during the M1 landing attempt. 'It's something that I believe will definitely be fixable, because getting that close means there's a few tweaks that are going to be needed for the next one,' he adds. If M2 had successfully landed on the lunar surface, the mission would have been the second time a commercial company had achieved the feat and a first for a non-US company. ispace's Mission 1 (M1) probably crashed during a landing attempt in April 2023. Lunar landings are challenging. When M1 crashed, Ryo Ujiie, ispace's chief technology officer said the telemetry — which collects data on the craft's altitude and speed — estimated that M1 was on the surface when it wasn't, causing the lander to free fall. Speaking to Nature last week, Ujiie said the company had addressed the telemetry issue with M2 and modified its software. 'We also carefully selected how to approach the landing site,' he added. Had M2 landed successfully, the craft would have supplied electricity for its cargo, including water electrolyzing equipment and a module for food production experiments — developed by Japan-based Takasago Thermal Engineering and biotechnology firm Euglena. A deep space radiation probe made by Taiwan's National Central University, and the 54-centimetre Tenacious rover were also be on board. The rover, created by ispace's European subsidiary in Luxemburg, was going to be released from the lander to collect imagery, location data and lunar sand known as regolith. Tenacious also carries a small red house made by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg. The craft launched on 15 January from Cape Canaveral, Florida, onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The rocket was also carrying the Blue Ghost Moon lander — developed by Firefly Aerospace, an aerospace firm based in Texas — which landed on the Moon on 2 March. M2 took a longer path to the moon than Blue Ghost, performing a lunar flyby on 15 February and spending two months in a low-energy transfer orbit before entering lunar orbit on 7 May. Ujiie says the path was slower because it was a low-energy trajectory, meaning that less fuel was used to move between Earth and lunar orbit. Richard de Grijs, an astronomer at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, says there will likely be more private companies trying to land their own crafts on the Moon. 'It seems that the big government players like NASA are quite keen to partner with commercial companies,' he says, because they can develop and launch crafts more cheaply than government bodies. He also expects that more missions will be launched in clusters, like the launch of M2 and Blue Ghost. This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on June 6, 2025.