Searching for the original foster goat in the fossil registry

It took decades, but scientists may have finally found the land of the earth.

It started in 1993 on the island of Vega, a very cold rock of the peninsula in the Antarctic. A mostly cut -off skeleton of the LOON diving bird appeared from the rocks that preceded it, in 68 million years, the extinction of dinosaurs. The types that scientists called Vegavis IAIServe a mystery: What is birds was a feather?

Nearly 20 years, a 2011 Antarctica mission appeared in the recent match with Vegavis IAI. In a published analysis Wednesday in the Journal of NatureThe researchers hold their necks to point out that the mysterious birds in Antarctica are an old relative of geese and ducks today, and the oldest known modern bird.

“It is exactly the type of thing that we need to help fill an evolutionary gap,” said Christopher Torres, a fossil scientist at Ohio University and author of the newspaper. But he confessed, “This also makes him incredibly controversial.”

In the past few decades, Dr. Torres said that researchers looking for bird genome suggested that some families of modern birds-especially water birds and birds-may have appeared before the influence of the asteroid that eliminated the inaccurate dinosaurs. But before the discovery of vegetables in the nineties, no distinctive fossils were identified, leaving a gap between molecular data and rock material evidence.

Chis Brunstein, a fossil scientist at Yale University, did not participate in the research. Some researchers suggested that Vegavis may have been one of the families of the extinct medium birds-some with serrated bills and the bustle-which did not survive the extinction of the Cretaceous period. Others thought it was a modern bird, closer to LOONS, Grebes or Geese.

The skull in 2011 helped penetrate this Logjam before date.

The researchers in the new paper created the 3D rebuilding of the head of the bird. They found that the vegetables had a beak and the shape of the brain without teeth for modern birds, as Dr. Torres said, in addition to the characteristics of a specific skull in which they argue indicating that the bird is closely related to modern water birds. But – here is the ridiculous part – the skull is completely different from those in the live ducks or geese. Its beak was long and spared. It had a large glands to remove salt from the body, and the strong jaw muscles that allowed birds to capture their jaws quickly underwater.

Dr. Torres said that the entire skeleton indicates a bird that is underwater after the fish and pushed itself with the strong kick legs. This is unlike any modern water birds, “and more similar to what we see in modern LOons and Vegetable“

Dr. Torres said that despite the Plan and its head plan, the exact details of its beauty – including its jaw and beak – show specific features indicating water birds.

While Dr. Brunstein described the discovery of a “exciting” vgavis skull, he is not convinced that it is sufficient to settle the discussion about the animal identity – or to clarify when the breeds of birds appeared like water birds. But even the most conservative interpretation of the skull indicates that modern birds and the nearest relatives without teeth were very anatomical at the end of the Cretaceous era.

Others are more enthusiastic.

The fact that the bird that carries such modern features was present by the end of the era of dinosaurs. Do not participate in the study. More exploration can reveal “ostrich ancestors, birds, new nails and ducks that may have wandered along with a non -Avian dinosaurs.”