WE report the discovery of two exquisitely preserved specimens of a new, very primitive bird from the Late Cretaceous period of Madagascar. The new taxon, Vorona berivotrensis, is provisionally placed phylogenetically in an unresolved trichotomy with Enantiornithes and a clade consisting of Patagopteryx and Ornithurae. These specimens are the first known pre-Holocene birds from Madagascar and the first avian skeletal remains from the Mesozoic era of a large portion of Gondwana.