Kuszholia

Taxobox
name = "Kuszholia"
fossil_range = Late Cretaceous
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Aves
subclassis = Enantiornithes
superordo = Euenantiornithes
familia = Kuszholiidae (disputed)
genus = "Kuszholia"
genus_authority = Nessov, 1992
species = "K. mengi"
binomial = "Kuszholia mengi"
binomial_authority = Nessov, 1992

"Kuszholia" (meaning "Milky Way bird" after the Kazakh term for the Milky Way, "kus zholi") is the name given to a genus from the Late Cretaceous. It was possibly a coelurosaur close to the ancestry of birds, although most scientists consider it an avian and a member of the Enantiornithes. Its fossils were found in the Bissekty Formation in the Kyzyl Kum desert of Uzbekistan.

The genus contains a single species, "K. mengi"; a separate family has been erected for it (Kuszholiidae), but this is not usually accepted and most researchers consider its affimities indeterminable beyond the scope presented above at present.

References

* Nessov, Lev Aleksandrovich (1992): [Record of the Localities of Mesozoic and Paleogene with Avian Remains in the USSR, and the description of New Findings] . "Russian Journal of Ornithology" 1: 7-50 [Article in Russian]

External links

* [http://dml.cmnh.org/1996Apr/msg00550.html George Olshevsky on "Kuszholia"] , from the Dinosaur Mailing List