page_title: Arizonasaurus
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Arizonasaurus / Description
caption_attribution_description: Arizonasaurus babbitti, a rauisuchian from the Late Triassic of Arizona, after S.J. Nesbitt,2003, pencil drawing
context_page_description: Arizonasaurus was a ctenosauriscid archosaur from the Middle Triassic. Arizonasaurus is found in the Middle Triassic Moenkopi Formation of northern Arizona. A fairly complete skeleton was found in 2002 by Sterling Nesbitt. The taxon has a large sailback formed by elongated neural spines of the vertebrae. The type species, Arizonasaurus babbitti, was named by Samuel Paul Welles in 1947.
context_section_description: Arizonasaurus had a sail made of tall neural spines. This sail was similar to those of other basal archosaurs, such as other ctenosauriscids like Ctenosauriscus, Lotosaurus, Bromsgroveia, and Hypselorhachis.
  Arizonasaurus is described from two braincase specimens. Some ancestral features of these braincases are plesiomorphic for crurotarsans.
  Below is a list of characteristics found by Nesbitt in 2005 that distinguish Arizonasaurus:
  a deep fossa hidden from view on the posteroventral edge of the upward-pointing process of the maxilla;
  and a tongue-groove attachment between the pubis and the ilium.
caption: Restoration
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