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 ...

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

For decades, scientists have wondered at the taxonomy of Vegavis iaai— an ancient avian specimen that lived in what is now Antarctica during the late Cretaceous period.

A newly studied Vegavis iaai skull from Antarctica confirms that modern bird lineages, like ducks and geese, were evolving ...

Paleontologists have found the first complete skull of a controversial prehistoric bird. Known as Vegavis iaai, the bird thrived in late-Cretaceous Antarctica, then a tropical paradise.

An artist’s interpretation of Vegavis iaai diving for fish in the shallow ocean off the coast of the Antarctic peninsula, with ammonites and plesiosaurs for company. Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert!

It belongs to a species that was first identified two decades ago named Vegavis iaai, which lived in the late Cretaceous Period alongside the last dinosaurs. But because only fragments of skulls ...

The fossil, a nearly complete, 69-million-year-old skull, belongs to an extinct bird named Vegavis iaai and was collected during a 2011 expedition by the Antarctic Peninsula Palaeontology Project.

The Late Cretaceous modern (crown) bird,Vegavis iaai, pursuit diving for fish in the shallow ocean off the coast of the Antarctic peninsula, with ammonites and plesiosaurs forcompany. (Credit: Mark ...

(CNN) — 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 ...