Euparkeria

Cast of the holotype of Euparkeria capensis with red-painted bone in Muséum national d' Histoire naturelle in Paris.

• At Aliwal North, South Africa

Euparkeria was a small, little more than half a meter long diapsides reptile that lived in the Lower and Middle Triassic. The type species Euparkeria capensis, the only species found so far is known only from a single locality in the Karoo Basin of South Africa.

Euparkeria had a stocky body with 22 vertebrae and a long tail. The legs were slender, the hind legs 1.5 times as long as the front legs. About back and tail along the spine runs a series of bony plates. The teeth are laterally flattened and form small blades with serrated margins.

In reconstructions Euparkeria is usually depicted biped, but the foot, the hind leg bones and the articular surfaces are not specialized for a two-legged, upright locomotion. Probably could Euparkeria how today's basilisk, flee quickly rennend at risk on its hind legs.

Along with a few other, less well researched genres from the Middle Triassic of Russia and China is Euparkeria the family Euparkeridae.