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Zhylgaia Temporal range: Paleocene
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Phaethontiformes
Genus:	†Zhylgaia Nessov, 1988
Species:	†Z. aestiflua
Binomial name
†Zhylgaia aestiflua Nessov, 1988

Zhylgaia is a genus of fossil bird. Its remains, consisting of two partial humeri, were recovered from an upper Paleocene deposit in Kazakhstan.

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 "Graculavidae", 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.

In 2008, Zhylgaia was assigned to Prophaethontidae—an extinct family related to modern tropicbirds—on the basis of its anatomy and size closely matching the prophaethontid Lithoptila.

References

1. ^ Bourdon, Estelle; Mourer-Chauviré, Cécile; Amaghzaz, Mbarek; Bouya, Baâdi (2008-09-12). "New specimens of Lithoptila abdounensis (Aves, Prophaethontidae) from the lower Paleogene of Morocco". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 28 (3): 751–761. doi:10.1671/0272-4634(2008)28[751:NSOLAA]2.0.CO;2. ISSN 0272-4634.

• Nessov, L. A. (1988): . Trudy Zoologicheskogo Instituta Akademii Nauk SSSR 182: 116–123.

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• Phaethontiformes
• Paleocene birds
• Paleogene birds of Asia
• Fossils of Kazakhstan
• Fossil taxa described in 1988
• Prehistoric bird stubs
• Bird stubs