Zhylgaia

taxobox
name="Zhylgaia"
status = Fossil
fossil_range = Late Cretaceous
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Aves
subclassis = Neornithes
infraclassis = Neognathae
genus = "Zhylgaia"
genus_authority = Nessov, 1988
species =
binomial = "Zhylgaia aestiflua"
binomial_authority = Nessov, 1988

"Zhylgaia" is a genus of birds known only from fossils. Its remains have been recovered from a Late Cretaceous or Paleogene deposit in Central Asia.

The relationships of this form are unknown; it was initially placed in the Presbyornithidae, which at that time were believed to be some sort of "transitional shorebird". Recognizing that the presbyornithids were actually a prehistoric lineage of fairly advanced waterfowl, "Zhylgaia" was assigned to the form taxon "Graculavidae", an assemblage of Late Cretaceous and Paleocene shorebirds which are not a natural clade but merely an assemblage of outwardly similar birds. All that can be said about this taxon is that it was a modern bird, in all probability a neognathe.

References

* Nessov, L. A. (1988): [New Birds from the Cretaceous and Paleogene of Central Asia and Kazakhstan and Natural Conditions in Their Habitats] . "Trudy Zoologicheskogo Instituta Akademii Nauk SSSR" 182: 116-123. [Article in Russian]