During 1984, a nearly complete oviraptorid skeleton was discovered at the Altan Uul II (or Altan Ula II) locality of the highly fossiliferous
Nemegt Formation,
Gobi Desert. This newly collected specimen,
MPC-D 100/32-A, included the skull and lower jaws in their entirety, nearly complete vertebral column, forelimbs with shoulder girdle, and partial hindlimbs with pelvic girdle. Later on,
Mongolian paleontologist
Rinchen Barsbold in 1986 used the specimen to erect and describe a new species of
Oviraptor:
Oviraptor mongoliensis. Barsbold in 1997 assigned a new genus for the specimen, namely
Rinchenia. Although concluding that it was distinctly different from
Oviraptor in both skull and skeleton characters, Barsbold did not include a formal diagnosis for this new taxon. Halszka Osmólska with colleagues in 2004 during their large revision of several dinosaur clades preferred the combination
R. mongoliensis over the previously named
O. mongoliensis, also regarding the latter as a synonym. In 2018, Gregory F. Funston and team conducted a comprehensive revision of the at-the-time known oviraptorosaur taxa across the
Barun Goyot Formation and Nemegt Formation, where they formally described, photographed, and diagnosed
Rinchenia based on the assigned
holotype MPC-D 100/32-A. The team also stated that even though the locality of the holotype is known, the exact site of discovery and horizon remains unknown. Funston in his 2019 master thesis described in extensive detail the holotype of
Rinchenia, along with other oviraptorids, where he provided additional data regarding the name of the taxon. The
generic name,
Rinchenia, is in honor of
Byambyn Rinchen, veteran
linguist and father of Barsbold. The
specific name,
mongoliensis, refers to the country where the holotype was found: Mongolia. ==Description==