Fossils of 'Early Modern Bird' Reveal It Existed Before the Asteroid Strike That Likely Wiped Out the Dinosaurs

When a massive asteroid struck our planet about 66 million years ago, 75% of our planet's flora and fauna perished due to the impact. The cataclysmic event marked the end of the Cretaceous Period and wiped out the dinosaurs, according to Smithsonian Magazine. However, only the birds that emerged from the species of dinosaurs, managed to survive. Paleontologists have long debated the origins of the modern species of birds and tried to theorize whether modern birds came before or after the impact.

As of 2025, a team of experts published a study in the journal, Nature, analyzing a 69-million-year-old fossil that belonged to the extinct Vegavis Iaai. The researchers claimed that the prehistoric bird was one of those modern birds that lived alongside the dinosaurs. "Few birds are as likely to start as many arguments among paleontologists as Vegavis," Christopher Torres, the lead author of the study, and a paleontologist at the University of the Pacific, said in a statement. "This new fossil is going to help resolve a lot of those arguments. Chief among them: where is Vegavis perched in the bird tree of life?"

The study of the fossil also raised questions about the relation of Vegavis Iaai with birds like ducks and geese. Co-author of the study and a paleontologist from the University of Texas, Julia Clarke, was the first one to identify the fossil along with fellow researchers, about 20 years ago from a 68-million-year-old fossil discovered in Antarctica, per the statement. Most of the skull portion from the fossil was missing and the experts had difficulties confirming any claims that it was related to an early modern bird. Another 2011 expedition to Antarctica, led the researchers to an almost fully intact 69-million-year-old fossil. 

After studying the fossil's skull, it was revealed that the creature had a long toothless beak and an enlarged forebrain just like modern birds. "Based on the neuroanatomy, it looks a lot like a living bird," Amy Balanoff, an evolutionary biologist at Johns Hopkins University who was not involved in the study, told Science. Torres on the other hand, spoke to Live Science and revealed that the bird fossil had a maxilla or a beak bone, that was smaller than those of modern birds. Torres and his colleagues suggested that the features of Vegavis Iaai indicated the bird to be an early relative of waterfowl like modern ducks and geese.

"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," Torres explained to CNN. "And that is a lifestyle that we observe broadly among loons and grebes." "This fossil underscores that Antarctica has much to tell us about the earliest stages of modern bird evolution," Patrick O'Connor, a paleontologist at Ohio University and another co-author on the study, revealed in the statement.

The discovery of the fossil also indicated that about 69 million years ago, Antarctica had a temperate climate and was full of lush vegetation. Researchers speculated if Antarctica was a haven for several species from the destructive impact of the asteroid. "Antarctica is in many ways the final frontier for humanity's understanding of life during the Age of Dinosaurs," Matthew Lamanna, a co-author of the study and paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, mentioned in the statement.