Avimaia

bird mother (or "bird good mother")

• avi- · Latin · bird (from avis)
• maia · Greek · good mother, nurse

The name combines the Latin word for bird with the Greek word "maia", meaning mother. It refers to the only known specimen, a female that died with an egg still inside her body and with signs of medullary bone, a tissue that female birds use as a calcium store when forming eggshell. The species name, schweitzerae, honors paleontologist Mary Schweitzer, who studied medullary bone.

Named by

Bailleul et al.

Year named

2019

Period

Early Cretaceous

Stage

Aptian

Found in

Xiagou Formation, Changma Basin, Gansu Province, China

Avimaia schweitzerae is an enantiornithine, an early group of birds. Birds are avian dinosaurs, so it counts as a dinosaur in the modern sense. The specimen is notable for an unlaid egg and probable medullary bone.