Zhylgaia

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Zhylgaia
Conservation status
Extinct (fossil)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Subclass: Neornithes Infraclass: Neognathae Genus: Zhylgaia 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.

[edit] 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]