Euparkeria

From small to large

Around 248 million years ago, in the Mesozoic era at the beginning of the Triassic, a lizard-like predator lived in the shadow of large reptiles.

Euparkeria was the smallest predator of its time and therefore relied on speed. It usually moved on four legs but was much faster on two. So fast, in fact, that palaeontologists believe it could even run across water. It was a unique ability at the time that may have given Euparkeria a significant evolutionary advantage.

Scientists are still not sure whether Euparkeria was the direct ancestor of the dinosaurs. The small predator still had a rather primitive physique, and there is a gap of 10 million years between its disappearance and the appearance of the first dinosaurs.

Nevertheless, its direct or indirect descendants, such as Coelophysis, the first known dinosaur, but especially Velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus, developed into the most successful predators of all time.