Eddie Gonzales Jr. – AncientPages.com – Sixty-six million years in the past, on the finish of the Cretaceous Interval, an asteroid affect close to the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico triggered the extinction of all recognized non-bird dinosaurs.
The Late Cretaceous fashionable (crown) fowl,Vegavis iaai, pursuit diving for fish within the shallow ocean off the coast of the Antarctic peninsula, with ammonites and plesiosaurs forcompany. Picture credit score: Mark Witton, 2025.
However for the early ancestors of as we speak’s waterfowl, surviving that mass extinction occasion was like…water off a duck’s again. Location issues, as Antarctica might have served as a refuge, protected by its distance from the turmoil going down elsewhere on the planet.
Fossil proof suggests a temperate local weather with lush vegetation, probably serving as an incubator for the earliest members of the group that now consists of geese and geese.
A paper revealed as we speak within the journal Nature describes an necessary new fossil of the oldest recognized fashionable fowl, an early relative of geese and geese that lived in Antarctica at across the identical time Tyrannosaurus rex dominated North America. The research was led by Dr. Christopher Torres, a Nationwide Science Basis (NSF) Postdoctoral Fellow at Ohio College’s Heritage Faculty of Osteopathic Drugs.
The fossil, an almost full, 69-million-year-old cranium, belongs to an extinct fowl named Vegavis iaai, and was collected throughout a 2011 expedition by the Antarctic Peninsula Paleontology Undertaking.
Christopher Torres, former NSF Postdoctoral Analysis Fellow at Ohio College and lead writer of the paper describing a brand new cranium of the 69-million-year-old fowl, Vegavis iaai, that when inhabited the shallow oceans off the coast of present-day Antarctica. Credit score: Ben Siegel, BSVC ’02 (Ohio College), 2021
The brand new cranium reveals a protracted, pointed beak and a mind form distinctive amongst all recognized birds beforehand found from the Mesozoic Period, when non-avian dinosaurs and a weird assortment of early birds dominated the globe. As a substitute, these options place Vegavis within the group that features all fashionable birds, representing the earliest proof of a now widespread and profitable evolutionary radiation throughout the planet.
“Few birds are as more likely to begin as many arguments amongst paleontologists as Vegavis,” says lead writer Dr. Torres, now a professor at College of the Pacific. “This new fossil goes to assist resolve numerous these arguments. Chief amongst them: the place is Vegavis perched within the fowl tree of life?”
Vegavis was first reported 20 years in the past by research co-author Dr. Julia Clarke of The College of Texas at Austin and a number of other colleagues. At the moment, it was proposed as an early member of recent (also called crown) birds that was evolutionarily nested inside waterfowl. However fashionable birds are exceptionally uncommon earlier than the end-Cretaceous extinction, and more moderen research have solid doubt on the evolutionary place of Vegavis. The brand new specimen described on this research has one thing that each one earlier fossils of this fowl have lacked: an almost full cranium.
Skeletal reconstruction of the Late Cretaceous (~69 million years previous) crown fowl Vegavis iaai. Preserved bones of the cranium and skeleton depicted in white. Credit score: Christopher Torres (College of the Pacific), 2025.
This new cranium helps lay that skepticism to relaxation, preserving a number of traits like the form of the mind and beak bones which are in step with fashionable birds, particularly waterfowl. Not like most waterfowl as we speak, the cranium preserves traces of highly effective jaw muscle groups helpful for overcoming water resistance whereas diving to snap up fish.
These cranium options are in step with clues from elsewhere within the skeleton, suggesting that Vegavis used its toes for underwater propulsion throughout pursuit of fish and different prey – a feeding technique not like that of recent waterfowl and extra like that of another birds resembling grebes and loons.
“This fossil underscores that Antarctica has a lot to inform us concerning the earliest phases of recent fowl evolution,” says Dr. Patrick O’Connor, co-author on the research, professor at Ohio College, and director of Earth and House Sciences at Denver Museum of Nature & Science.
Birds recognized from elsewhere on the planet at across the identical time are barely recognizable by fashionable fowl requirements. Furthermore, a lot of the handful of websites that even protect delicate fowl fossils yield specimens which are so incomplete as to solely give hints to their identification, as was the state of affairs with Vegavis till now.
“And people few locations with any substantial fossil report of Late Cretaceous birds, like Madagascar and Argentina, reveal an aviary of weird, now-extinct species with tooth and lengthy bony tails, solely distantly associated to fashionable birds. One thing very completely different appears to have been occurring within the far reaches of the Southern Hemisphere, particularly in Antarctica,” famous Dr. O’Connor.
How the Antarctic landmass helped form fashionable ecosystems in deep time is a subject of lively analysis by scientists from around the globe. Certainly, based on research co-author Dr. Matthew Lamanna of Carnegie Museum of Pure Historical past, “Antarctica is in some ways the ultimate frontier for humanity’s understanding of life in the course of the Age of Dinosaurs.”
Dr. Torres was supported at Ohio College for 3 years by the NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, engaged on a venture analyzing the connection between fowl diversification and resilience to extinction by way of the mixed lenses of ecology, mind anatomy, and different life historical past traits. He’s now in his first yr as an Assistant Professor within the Division of Organic Sciences at College of the Pacific in Stockton, California.
“This discovery exemplifies the facility of scientific analysis and the essential position our establishment performs in advancing data about Earth’s deep historical past,” Ohio College President Lori Stewart Gonzalez mentioned. “This analysis not solely enhances our understanding of early fowl evolution but additionally highlights the invaluable contributions of OHIO graduate college students and postdoctoral researchers who’re on the forefront of those expeditions. It’s by way of these international, expeditionary efforts—whether or not within the discipline or within the lab—that we will really grasp the dynamic modifications our planet has undergone over thousands and thousands of years.
This research is a chief instance of real-world experiential studying that connects STEM training with hands-on, transformative analysis, getting ready the subsequent technology of scientists to deal with the challenges of the long run.”
“Giant-scale initiatives like this one, involving college students and postdoctoral researchers, put together the scientists of tomorrow to collaborate, advance science, and deal with the largest questions going through our planet,” added Dr. O’Connor.
Written by Eddie Gonzales Jr. – AncientPages.com – MessageToEagle.com Employees Author
