Zhylgaia

Zhylgaia; Temporal range: Late Cretaceous
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Genus:	†Zhylgaia; , 1988
Species:	†Z. aestiflua
Binomial name
	†Zhylgaia aestiflua; Nesov, 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 genus are unknown; it was initially placed in the Presbyornithidae, which at that time were believed to be some sort of "transitional shorebird". Upon recognition that the presbyornithids were more likely a prehistoric lineage of fairly advanced waterfowl, Zhylgaia was assigned to the form taxon "", an assemblage of Late Cretaceous and Paleocene shorebirds which are not a natural clade but merely an assemblage of superficially similar birds. All that can be said about this taxon is that it was a modern bird, most likely a neognath.^{[citation needed]}

References[]

Nesov, 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]

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