''Kuszholia'' (meaning "

Milky Way The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. ...

bird" after the Kazakh term for the Milky Way, ''kus zholi'') is the name given to a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

of primitive

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

s or bird-like

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

s 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'', ...

. They were possibly

coelurosaur Coelurosauria (; from Greek, meaning "hollow tailed lizards") is the clade containing all theropod dinosaurs more closely related to birds than to carnosaurs. Coelurosauria is a subgroup of theropod dinosaurs that includes compsognathids, tyran ...

s close to the ancestry of birds, although most scientists have considered it an

avialan Avialae ("bird wings") is a clade containing the only living dinosaurs, the birds. It is usually defined as all theropod dinosaurs more closely related to birds (Aves) than to deinonychosaurs, though alternative definitions are occasionally used ...

(either a primitive

ornithuran Ornithurae (meaning "bird tails" in Greek) is a natural group which includes the common ancestor of ''Ichthyornis'', ''Hesperornis'', and all modern birds as well as all other descendants of that common ancestor. Classification Ernst Haeckel co ...

or enantiornithine). Fossils were found in the

Bissekty Formation The Bissekty Formation (sometimes referred to as Bissekt) is a geologic formation and Lagerstätte which crops out in the Kyzyl Kum desert of Uzbekistan, and dates to the Late Cretaceous Period. Laid down in the mid to late Turonian, it is dated ...

in the Kyzyl Kum desert of

Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...

. The genus contains a single species, ''K. mengi''; a separate

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

has been erected for it (Kuszholiidae). It is known only from a series of small vertebrae, with prominent hollow chambers (''pneumaticity'').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. rticle in Russian/ref>

References

External links

George Olshevsky on ''Kuszholia''
from the Dinosaur Mailing List Bissekty Formation Euenantiornitheans Fossils of Uzbekistan Fossil taxa described in 1992 Late Cretaceous birds of Asia Prehistoric bird genera Turonian life {{paleo-bird-stub