Euparkeriidae

Euparkeriidae is an extinct family of small carnivorous archosauriforms which lived from the Early Triassic to the Middle Triassic (Anisian). While most other early archosauriforms walked on four limbs, euparkeriids were probably facultative bipeds that had the ability to walk on their hind limbs at times. The most well known member of Euparkeriidae is the species Euparkeria capensis, which was named by paleontologist Robert Broom from the Karoo Basin of South Africa in 1913 and is known from several nearly complete skeletons. The family name was first proposed by German paleontologist Friedrich von Huene in 1920; Huene classified euparkeriids as members of Pseudosuchia, a traditional name for crocodilian-line archosaurs from the Triassic. However, phylogenetic analyses performed in the 21st century place Euparkeriidae as a group of Archosauriformes, a position outside Pseudosuchia and close to the ancestry of both crocodile-line archosaurs and bird-line archosaurs. However, they are probably not direct ancestors of archosaurs.

Euparkeriidae

Martin D. Ezcurra · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
ArchosauriformesPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Diapsida

Time the record covers

At most 9.4 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 250.8 Mya and 241.464 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Early Triassic — about 1 of 3 occurrencesEarly TriassicMiddle Triassic — about 2 of 3 occurrencesMiddle Triassic251–251 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences251–250 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences250–250 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences250–250 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences250–249 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences249–249 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences249–249 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences249–248 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences248–248 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences248–248 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences248–247 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences247–247 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences247–246 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences246–246 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences246–246 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences246–245 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences245–245 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences245–245 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences245–244 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences244–244 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences244–244 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences244–243 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences243–243 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences243–243 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences243–242 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences242–242 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences242–242 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences242–241 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences251.3 Mya241 Mya

3 occurrences of Euparkeriidae on record, most of them in the Middle Triassic. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

3 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Ermaying — 39.10°N, 111.00°EErmaying — 39.68°N, 110.97°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Euparkeriidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Euparkeriidae and its relatives

Middle Triassic

Where Euparkeriidae and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Triassic.

Found in the same rock

17 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Euparkeriidae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

2 references

Each of the 3 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Euparkeriidae

Credit
Martin D. Ezcurra
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Euparkeriidae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itArchosauriformes through timeFormations of the Middle TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Huene 1920