SCIENCE

Where Arizona’s official state dinosaur was discovered

University of Arizona lecturer who first found the new species in the Sonoran Desert says expect to hear about many, many new discoveries to come

Ron Ratkevich, the Desert Museum paleontologist at the time, and his brother Richard point at bones in the rock when Sonorasaurus was excavated.

(Photo provided by Richard Thompson)

Richard Thompson, who serves today as lecturer for the College of Information Science at UA, was then a student in geosciences on the Tucson campus when he was the first to find fossilized bones that were later identified as a new dinosaur species.

(Photo provided by UA)

A cross-section of a Sonorasaurus rib is observed at the time of its excavation in the mid-1990s.

(Photo provided by Richard Thompson)

The general area of Mattie Canyon on the west side of Whetstone Mountains halfway between Tucson and Sierra Vista is seen at the time of the Sonorasaurus discovery.

(Photo provided by Richard Thompson)

There are a lot of animals Arizona has honored as official state symbols.

State amphibian? That would be the Arizona tree frog. State mammal? Meet the ringtail. There’s a state bird (cactus wren), a state fish (Apache trout), and a state butterfly (two-tailed swallowtail).

Arizona also has a state dinosaur.

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Where Arizona’s official state dinosaur was discovered

University of Arizona lecturer who first found the new species in the Sonoran Desert says expect to hear about many, many new discoveries to come

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Where Arizona’s official state dinosaur was discovered

University of Arizona lecturer who first found the new species in the Sonoran Desert says expect to hear about many, many new discoveries to come

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