Shanag

Shanag was named and described by Alan Turner, Sunny Hai-Ching Hwang and Mark Norell in 2007. The generic name refers to the black-hatted dancers in the Buddhist Cham dance. The specific name refers to the Ashile Formation, the old name for the layers where Shanag was found, used by Henry Fairfield Osborn. == Description ==

Shanag was a small predator, measuring about long and weighing around . Shanag shows a mixture of dromaeosaurid, troodontid and basal avialan traits. Feathers also allowed for thermoregulation by reducing the amount of airflow near the skin and preventing heat loss. Their wings, though not capable of flight, could be used to stabilize themselves while on their prey via flapping like extant raptor birds. Shanag are also believed to be endothermic based on their high speed and high level of activity. This claim of scaling was later contested, and it was suggested the claws were used to grip and pin down prey similarly to extant birds of prey. ==Classification==

In 2007, Turner and colleagues assigned Shanag to the Dromaeosauridae. Their cladistic analysis indicated that it was a basal dromaeosaurid but higher in the tree than the Unenlagiinae. In 2012, Shanag was recovered as a sister taxon to the Unenlagiinae. In 2013, Agnolín and Novas claimed that the traits of Shanag once used to identify the taxon as a dromaeosaurid closely related to the unenlagiines, were actually found in many other groups of paravian theropods such as the troodontids, avialans, and other basal paravians, with some features suggesting that it is more likely an avialan. Thus, they concluded that Shanag can only be identified as a basal averaptoran. A 2017 study still recovered Shanag as a dromaeosaurid based on phylogenetic analyses, but as a sister taxon to Laurasian dromaeosaurids from the Late Cretaceous and not related to unenlagiines. In 2019, Agnolín and colleagues argued that Shanag cannot be confidently classified as a dromaeosaurid other than being a paravian. In 2024, Porfiri and colleagues classified Shanag and Pyroraptor as sister taxa to unenlagiines, while Wang and Pei recovered Shanag within Serraraptoria which includes microraptorians and eudromaeosaurians. ==See also==