Euparkeria (meaning "Parker's good animal") is a genus of reptile that is close to the ancestor of archosaurs, which includes crocodiles, pterosaurs, and dinosaurs. It lived in South Africa during the Early or the Middle Triassic. Fossils of this animal have been recovered from the Cynognathus Assemblage Zone, which hosts the oldest advanced archosauriforms in the fossil-rich Karoo Basin. It was named after Robert Broom's former professor William Kitchen Parker, in combination with the ancient greek word "eu", meaning true or good. The species name refers to the Cape Province. It has been believed that Euparkeria was the ancestors of the dinosaurs.
In medias, Euparkeria has appeared in the famous documentary Walking With Monsters, being featured in the Triassic sequence as an insect eater and ancestor of the dinosaurs, also escaping jaws of Proterosuchus.
Books[]
The Jurassic Park Official Annual[]
Euparkeria appears in The Jurassic Park Official Annual, though in an illustration about the evolution of vertebrates to the first dinosaurs.
