First bird to roam Earth after dinosaurs were killed by asteroid revealed and it’s a relative of much-loved species

THE long-lost forefather of the beloved duck and goose has been discovered, aft outliving the hardy dinosaurs.

The feathered carnal thrived during the Cretaceous period, and continued to bash truthful adjacent aft an Earth-shattering asteroid onslaught 66million years ago.

It was, of course, the infamous asteroid interaction that brought an extremity to the property of dinosaurs.

Though it was lone truly the extremity for non-avian creatures.

Birds are thought to person recovered refuge successful past Antarctica, erstwhile the now-frozen continent was lukewarm and awash with lush greenish vegetation.

The country was escaped from the deadly tsunamis and ash clouds brought connected by the asteroid that deed adjacent the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico.

A nearly-complete, 69million-year-old fossil of the long-extinct vertebrate named Vegavis iaai supports this theory.

It was collected during a 2011 expedition by the Antarctic Peninsula Paleontology Project, and is believed to beryllium the earliest modern vertebrate successful existence, according to a caller survey published successful Nature.

Analysis of its bones suggests it would person inhabited the shallow oceans disconnected the seashore of present-day Antarctica, utilizing its feet to dart underwater to drawback fish.

Its skull has a long, pointed beak and signals a encephalon signifier akin to modern birds, suggesting it is the earliest ancestor of today's duck and geese.

Over the past 20 years, determination has been quality implicit whether Vegavis truly is the great-great-grandfather of modern birds, since its skull differed greatly from birds antecedently discovered from the Mesozoic Era.

“Few birds are arsenic apt to commencement arsenic galore arguments among paleontologists arsenic Vegavis,” said Dr. Christopher Torres, pb writer of the survey and prof astatine the University of the Pacific.

“This caller fossil is going to assistance resoluteness a batch of those arguments. Chief among them: wherever is Vegavis perched successful the vertebrate histrion of life?”

Though researchers judge this study, the archetypal to analyse a near-complete Vegavis skull, puts immoderate skepticism to rest.

Dr. Patrick O’Connor, co-author connected the survey and prof astatine Ohio University, said: "This fossil underscores that Antarctica has overmuch to archer america astir the earliest stages of modern vertebrate evolution."

The birds processing elsewhere connected the satellite astatine the aforesaid clip hardly resembled modern birds with their teeth and tails.

"Those fewer places with immoderate important fossil grounds of Late Cretaceous birds, similar Madagascar and Argentina, uncover an aviary of bizarre, now-extinct taxon with teeth and agelong bony tails, lone distantly related to modern birds," added Dr. O'Connor.

"Something precise antithetic seems to person been happening successful the acold reaches of the Southern Hemisphere, specifically successful Antarctica."