In 2000 David Martill and Eberhard Frey reported the find of a small dinosaur fossil present in a chalk nodule, acquired by the German Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Karlsruhe from a Brazilian fossil dealer who had indicated the piece had been uncovered in the Chapada do Araripe.[1] In 2004 the type species Mirischia asymmetrica was named and described by Martill, Frey and Darren Naish. The generic name combines the Latin mirus, 'wonderful', with "ischia", the Latinised plural of Greek ἴσχιον, ischion, 'hip joint'. The specific name asymmetrica refers to the fact that in the specimen the left ischium differs from its right counterpart.[2]