Kuszholia

Kuszholia; Temporal range: Turonian; 93–89 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Dinosauria
Clade:	Saurischia
Clade:	Theropoda
Clade:	Avialae
Clade:	†Enantiornithes
Family:	†Kuszholiidae; , 1992
Genus:	†Kuszholia; Nesov, 1992
Species:	†K. mengi
Binomial name
	†Kuszholia mengi; Nesov, 1992

Kuszholia (meaning "Milky Way bird" after the Kazakh term for the Milky Way, kus zholi) 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.

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[]

^ 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]