Outline: a typical theropod
Rinchenia
- Lived
- 72 to 66 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Omnivore
- Length
- about 2.5 m (8 ft)
- Group
- Theropods, Oviraptoridae
- Found in
- Mongolia
- Named by
- Barsbold 1997
Size comparison
To scale
Scale in metersOutline: typical theropod shape
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
70 million years ago
Field notes
About Rinchenia
What it was like
Rinchenia was an oviraptorid, a toothless, feathered theropod about 2.5 meters (8 feet) long. It had a tall, rounded crest on its head, higher than that of its relative Oviraptor. It probably ate a mix of plants and small animals.
Its world
It lived about 72 to 66 million years ago, at the end of the Late Cretaceous, in what is now Mongolia. Its bones come from the Nemegt Formation, a land of rivers shared with the huge predator Tarbosaurus and the ostrich-like Gallimimus.
How it was found
It was first described as a species of Oviraptor. Barsbold gave it its own genus in 1997. The name honors a Mongolian scholar.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Oviraptoridae
Sources: WikidataNamed in: R. Barsbold. 1997. Oviraptorosauria. The Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs