Rinchenia
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| iRinchenia |
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 Profile of Rinchenia mongoliensis.
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Extinct (fossil)
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| Rinchenia mongoliensis (Barsbold, 1986) |
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Oviraptor mongoliensis Barsbold, 1986 |
Rinchenia was a genus of Mongolian oviraptorid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous Period. Rinchenia mongoliensis was originally considered a species within the genus Oviraptor but re-examination by its initial describer Rinchen Barsbold (1997) found differences significant enough to warrant a new name. 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 had a 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.
The name Rinchenia was published by Barsbold in 1997 as a nomen nudum, and gained official status when used in Osmólska et al. 2004.
[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.
