A 69-Million-Year Evolutionary Mystery: Scientists Discover Oldest Modern Bird

From SciTEchDaily

Sixty-six million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous Period, an asteroid impact near the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico triggered the extinction of all known non-avian dinosaurs. Yet, for the early ancestors of today’s waterfowl, surviving that mass extinction event was like… water off a duck’s back.

Location played a crucial role, and Antarctica may have served as a refuge, its remoteness shielding it from the upheaval occurring elsewhere on the planet. Fossil evidence suggests a temperate climate with lush vegetation, potentially providing an incubator for the earliest members of the group that now includes ducks and geese.