Kansaignathus

Kansaignathus () is an extinct genus of dromaeosaurid theropod from the Late Cretaceous Yalovach Formation (or Ialovachsk Formation) of Tajikistan. The genus contains only one species, the type species, K. sogdianus. The generic name of Kansaignathus comes from near the town of Konsoy ("Kansai" in Russian) where it was discovered and the Greek word "gnathos" meaning "jaw". The specific epithet "sogdianus" is derived from the historical region of Sogdiana, which was an ancient name for the Fergana Valley region where the fossil was discovered. Kansaignathus is known from a single right dentary bone and a few post-cranial bone fragments. It was the first, and so far the only, dinosaur from Tajikistan to be described and named. ==Discovery== thumb|left|A stamp from Tajikistan depicting the town of Konsoy The holotype of Kansaignathus was found at the Kansai locality, about 22 km to the North of the town of Khujand (sometimes spelled "Khudzhand") in the Sughd Region of Tajikistan. This locality was discovered in 1940 by O.S. Vialov, but fossils were not excavated from the area until the Paleontological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR sent large-scale expeditions to the area in 1963 and 1964. Exact dates and times of when the holotype was excavated is not known, but references to dromaeosaurs known from the locality were made by L.A. Nesov in a publication in 1995.

The type specimen is reposited at the Borissiak Paleontological Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. It was given the designation PIN 2398/15 and consists of a single partial dentary bone. Additional material, which was also collected in the 1963-1964 expeditions, was described by A.K. Rozhdestvensky in 1977.