The first Citipati osmolskae specimens were discovered by scientists from the American Museum of Natural History and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences in 1993 at Ukhaa Tolgod, Mongolia. In traditional Himalayan Buddhism, Citipati are the dancing skeletons that guard funeral pyres. The name osmolskae honors Halszka Osmólska, a Polish paleontologist who specialized in dinosaurs and was an explorer of the Gobi Desert.