''Kansaignathus'' (meaning "jaw from Kansai") is a genus of

velociraptorine Velociraptorinae is a subfamily of the theropod group Dromaeosauridae. The earliest velociraptorines are probably ''Nuthetes'' from the United Kingdom, and possibly '' Deinonychus'' from North America. However, several indeterminate velociraptori ...

dromaeosaurid Dromaeosauridae () is a family of feathered theropod dinosaurs. They were generally small to medium-sized feathered carnivores that flourished in the Cretaceous Period. The name Dromaeosauridae means 'running lizards', from Greek ('), meaning ...

from the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the ...

Ialovachsk Formation The Ialovachsk or Yalovach Formation is a geologic formation in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan dating to the Santonian age of the Cretaceous period. Weishampel et al., 2004, pp.517-607 Fossil content Fossil dinosaur eggs as well as pter ...

Tajikistan Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...

. The genus contains a single species, ''Kansaignathus sogdianus.''.

Discovery and naming

The

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

of ''Kansaignathus'', 2398/15, consists of a right dentary. It was discovered in the Konsoy locality in the north of the

Fergana Valley The Fergana Valley (; ; ) in Central Asia lies mainly in eastern Uzbekistan, but also extends into southern Kyrgyzstan and northern Tajikistan. Divided into three republics of the former Soviet Union, the valley is ethnically diverse and in the ...

of Tajikistan in the 1960s. The generic name, ''Kansaignathus'', is derived from "Kansai," the Russian name of the location where the holotype specimen was discovered, and the Greek "''gnathos''," meaning jaw. The specific name, ''sogdianus'', is derived from

Sogdia Sogdia (Sogdian language, Sogdian: ) or Sogdiana was an ancient Iranian peoples, Iranian civilization between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, and in present-day Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Sogdiana was also ...

na, an ancient region in Central Asia. It represents the first non-avian dinosaur described from Tajikistan.

Classification

''Kansaignathus'' was placed as a basal member of the subfamily

Velociraptorinae Velociraptorinae is a subfamily of the theropod group Dromaeosauridae. The earliest velociraptorines are probably ''Nuthetes'' from the United Kingdom, and possibly ''Deinonychus'' from North America. However, several indeterminate velociraptorin ...

by Averianov & Lopatin in 2021. Their cladogram is shown below:

References

Eudromaeosaurs Santonian genera Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of Asia Paleontology in Tajikistan Fossil taxa described in 2021 Santonian species extinctions Monotypic dinosaur genera {{theropod-stub