Vegavis skull 2025: taxon exclusion and genomics adversely affect this study

From the Torres et al 2025 abstract:
“Among the earliest known putative crown birds is Vegavis iaai, a foot-propelled diver from the latest Cretaceous (69.2–68.4 million years ago) of Antarctica with controversial phylogenetic affinities.

In the large reptile tree (LRT, 2336 taxa) prior to 2025 Vegavis (Figs 1, 2) nests at the base of the crown birds along with extinct Pseudocrypturus (Fig 1, 2) and these two with extant Apteryx, Scolopax and Gallinago, the kiwi, woodcock and snipe. These five taxa are far from derived loons and ducks (Fig 2), the extant ‘foot-propelled divers.’

BTW, Vegavis has the post-crania of a stork-like wader (Fig 2), not a diver.

Also from the abstract:
“Initially recovered by phylogenetic analyses as a stem anatid (ducks and closely related species), Vegavis has since been recovered as a stem member of Anseriformes (waterfowl), or outside Aves altogether.

“Here we report a new, nearly complete skull of Vegavis that provides new insight into its feeding ecology and exhibits morphologies that support placement among waterfowl within crown-group birds.

‘Waterfowl’ by definition includes only Anseriformes, not kingfishers, loons, plovers and penguins.

In the LRT Vegavis nests among the most primitive crown birds (listed above), not a member of the derived Anseriformes (geese + ducks, Fig 2).

‘Vegavis has an avian beak (absence of teeth and reduced maxilla) and brain shape (hyperinflated cerebrum and ventrally shifted optic lobes). The temporal fossa is well excavated and expansive, indicating that this bird had hypertrophied jaw musculature. The beak is narrow and pointed, and the mandible lacks retroarticular processes.

See figure 1 where the beak tip is not preserved, but can be assumed to be pointed. The mandible has a retroarticular process (Fig 1).

“Together, these features comprise a feeding apparatus unlike that of any other known anseriform but like that of other extant birds that capture prey underwater (for example, grebes and loons).

No reason to limit a search for similar taxa to extant birds (= with genes) that capture prey underwater. Rather look for similar taxa, whether extant or extinct from a long list, like the LRT. Extinct Pseudocrypturus is a better match for Vegavis than extant geese, ducks and sharp-billed loons (like Gavia, Fig 1).

More from the abstract
“The Cretaceous occurrence of Vegavis, with a feeding ecology unique among known Galloanserae (waterfowl and landfowl), is further indication that the earliest anseriform divergences were marked by evolutionary experiments unrepresented in the extant diversity.”

This is a myth promoted by professors of genomics.

Don’t use genomics, especially when you have a Cretaceous bird. Use traits. Genomics requires fossil exclusion = taxon exclusion, the number one problem in paleontology. Always use trait analysis. Avoid mistakes made by academics like Torres et al 2025 and artist, Mark Witton (Fig 3).

Galloanserae is not a clade recovered by the LRT.
Ducks (anseriformes) do not look like chickens (galliformes) and the two clades do not nest together in the LRT. Thus Galloanserae is a mythical genomic clade after testing using traits. Galloanserae was falsified in the LRT years ago.

Yes, genomics is widely taught in university textbooks and lecture halls. Yes, genomics is widely accepted.

Don’t be fooled by consensus thinking.

Test this yourself to see if you can get ducks to nest with chickens using a taxon list similar to the one in the LRT.

Answer: You can’t.

References
Torres CR, et al (7 co-authors) 2025. Cretaceous Antarctic bird skull elucidates early avian ecological diversity. Nature 638, 146–151 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08390-0

Publicity
cnn.com

“Fossil of oldest known modern bird discovered in Antarctica

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, a new study has found.

The 68 million-year-old fossil belongs to an extinct species of bird known as Vegavis iaai that lived at the end of the Cretaceous period, when Tyrannosaurus rex dominated North America and just before a city-size asteroid hit Earth, dooming the dinosaurs to extinction.

Birds that lived among the dinosaurs were barely recognizable when compared with today’s bird species. Many sported bizarre features such as toothed beaks and long, bony tails.

Vegavis, however, would have been ducklike in size and similar ecologically to aquatic bird species such as loons, said Christopher Torres, an assistant professor of biology at the University of the Pacific in California and lead author of the study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

“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. And that is a lifestyle that we observe broadly among loons and grebes,” he said.

Paleontologists first described Vegavis 20 years ago, but many were skeptical that it represented a modern or crown bird species. Most modern bird fossils that had been unearthed at that point dated to after the dinosaur-killing asteroid struck off the coast of what’s now Mexico 66 million years ago. Many scientists assumed that modern-looking birds began to evolve after and perhaps in response to the mass extinction.

Previous Vegavis fossil specimens also lacked a complete skull, said study coauthor Patrick O’Connor, a professor of anatomical sciences at Ohio University. Skulls are where the most characteristic features of modern birds, such as a lack of teeth and an enlarged premaxillary bone in the upper beak, can be identified.

The fossil examined in the study, collected during a 2011 expedition by the Antarctic Peninsula Paleontology Project, was found encased in rock that dated back 68.4 to 69.2 million years and displayed modern characteristics, such as a toothless beak, according to the study.

“The new fossil shows Vegavis is undoubtedly a modern bird (something that was challenged in the past) and is an exceptional find preserving a strange and surprising morphology,” said Juan Benito Moreno, a fellow in the department of earth sciences at the University of Cambridge and an expert on fossil birds, in an email.

“The new skull of Vegavis shows a very specialized morphology for diving and fish eating, more so than I would have expected,” added Moreno, who was not involved in the study but was involved in the discovery of the only other known modern bird species from the Cretaceous.

A survivor of mass extinction?

The brain shape revealed by the new fossil, which researchers scanned using computerized tomography to create a three-dimensional reconstruction, was also characteristic of modern birds, according to the study.

Together, these features place Vegavis in the group that includes all modern birds, and the fossil skull represents “the earliest member of this entire radiation that we see around us today, that consists of 11,000 bird species,” O’Connor said.

While Vegavis resembled present-day waterfowl in some ways, other features didn’t fit the mold. For instance, the study noted that the skull preserves traces of a slender, pointed beak powered by enhanced jaw muscles, a feature that is more like diving birds than other known waterfowl.

“Antarctica at 69 million years ago didn’t look like it did today. It was actually forested. It was a cool, temperate climate based on most of our modeling, and this animal, we recovered it in a marine rock unit so we would envision that it was doing this pursuit diving in a nearshore, marine environment,” O’Connor added.

Torres, who was a postdoctoral fellow studying avian paleontology at Ohio University when he conducted the research, said the discovery of the Vegavis fossil in Antarctica and a fossil of an extinct bird species known as Conflicto antarcticus from a nearby location dating from shortly after dinosaurs’ extinction would allow paleontologists to investigate how some animals survived the cataclysmic event.

“What happens to the survivors? What determines, number one, what a survivor is, and number two, what are the survivors going to look like after one of these catastrophic events?” he said.”

From Nature PR

“Fossil bird skull suggests Antarctic waterfowl survived Cretaceous mass extinction. The fossilized skull of a bird called Vegavis, which lived in the Antarctic some 68.7 million years ago, confirms it was an early member of the waterfowl group. However, the skull also suggests that, unlike most modern waterfowl, Vegavis used to dive for its fish prey.”

Source: https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/2025/02/06/vegavis-skull-2025-taxon-exclusion-and-genomics-adversely-affect-this-study/