Kuszholia (meaning "Milky Way bird" after the Kazakh term for the Milky Way, құс жолы qus jolı) is the name given to a genus of primitive birds or bird-like dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous. They were possibly coelurosaurs close to the ancestry of birds, although most scientists have considered it an avialan (either a primitive ornithuran or enantiornithine). Fossils were found in the Bissekty Formation in the Kyzyl Kum desert of Uzbekistan.

Kuszholia
Temporal range: Turonian
93–89 Ma
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Clade: Saurischia
Clade: Theropoda
Clade: Avialae
Clade: Enantiornithes
Family: Kuszholiidae
Nesov, 1992
Genus: Kuszholia
Nesov, 1992
Species:
K. mengi
Binomial name
Kuszholia mengi
Nesov, 1992

The genus contains a single species, K. mengi; a separate family has been erected for it (Kuszholiidae). It is known only from a series of small vertebrae, with prominent hollow chambers (pneumaticity).[1]

References edit

  1. ^ Nesov, L.A. (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 edit