Rinchenia
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Categories: Dinosaurs

Rinchenia Fossil range: Late Cretaceous
Profile of Rinchenia mongoliensis.
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Sauropsida Superorder: Dinosauria Order: Saurischia Family: Oviraptoridae Genus: Rinchenia Osmólska et al., 2004
Species
R. mongoliensis (type) (Barsbold, 1986) vide Osmólska et al., 2004

Rinchenia was a genus of Mongolian oviraptorid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous Period. Rinchenia mongoliensis was originally considered a species within the genus Oviraptor (named Oviraptor mongoliensis by Rinchen Barsbold in 1986), but a re-examination by Barsbold in 1997 found differences significant enough to warrant a separate genus. The name Rinchenia was coined for this new genus by Barsbold in 1997, though he did not describe it in detail, and the name remained a nomen nudum until used by Osmólska et al. in 2004.

While Rinchenia was about the same size as Oviraptor (2.5 meters, or 8 ft long), several features of its skeleton, especially in the skull, show it to be distinct. It skeleton was more lightly built and less robust than that of Oviraptor, and where Oviraptor was thought to have low crest similar to the well-known oviraptorid Citipati, Rinchenia had a much more highly developed dome-like casque which incorporated many bones in the skull that are free of the crest in Oviraptor.

[edit] References

• Barsbold, R. (1986). "Raubdinosaurier Oviraptoren" [in Russian]. In: O.I. Vorob’eva (ed.), Gerpetologičeskie issledovaniâ v Mongol’skoj Narod−noj Respublike, 210–223. Institut èvolûcionnoj morfologii i èkologii životnyh im. A.N. Severcova, Akademiâ nauk SSSR, Moscow.
• Barsbold, R. (1997). "Oviraptorosauria." In: P.J. Currie and K. Padian (eds.), Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs, 505–509. Academic Press, San Diego.
• Osmólska, H., Currie, P. J., and Barsbold, R. (2004). "Oviraptorosauria." In: Weishampel, D.B., Dodson, P., and Osmólska, H. (eds.), The Dinosauria, Second Edition. California University Press, 165-183.

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