Oviraptorids traded the typical theropod tooth-lined jaw for a toothless, parrot-like beak, and many genera carried tall, sometimes elaborate bony crests on the skull whose function -- display, species recognition, or both -- mirrors the crest debates seen in hadrosaurids. The family sits close to the theropod-bird boundary, and its skeletal build, including fused wrist bones and a shortened tail, reflects that proximity.
The genus that gave the family its name, Oviraptor, was originally described in 1924 as an egg thief after being found near a nest of what were assumed to be another dinosaur's eggs. Decades later, better-preserved specimens -- including Citipati, found in a brooding posture directly over its own clutch -- showed the eggs belonged to the oviraptorid itself, and that the animal died caring for its nest rather than raiding someone else's. The family is known primarily from Cretaceous Asia.