Sauropareion is an extinct genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of basal

Basal (phylogenetics)

In phylogenetics, a basal clade is the earliest clade to branch in a larger clade; it appears at the base of a cladogram.A basal group forms an outgroup to the rest of the clade, such as in the following example:...

 procolophonid parareptile from earliest Triassic

Triassic

The Triassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about 250 to 200 Mya . As the first period of the Mesozoic Era, the Triassic follows the Permian and is followed by the Jurassic. Both the start and end of the Triassic are marked by major extinction events...

 (early Induan

Induan

The Induan is, in the geologic timescale, the first age of the Early Triassic epoch or the lowest stage of the Lower Triassic series. It spans the time between 251 ± 0.4 Ma and 249.7 ± 0.7 Ma...

 stage) deposits of Eastern Cape Province

Cape Province

The Province of the Cape of Good Hope was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequently the Republic of South Africa...

, South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

. It is known from the holotype

Holotype

A holotype is a single physical example of an organism, known to have been used when the species was formally described. It is either the single such physical example or one of several such, but explicitly designated as the holotype...

 SAM PK-11192, skull

Skull

The skull is a bony structure in the head of many animals that supports the structures of the face and forms a cavity for the brain.The skull is composed of two parts: the cranium and the mandible. A skull without a mandible is only a cranium. Animals that have skulls are called craniates...

 and partial postcranium. It was collected by the late L. D. Boonstra in 1935 from Barendskraal in the Middelburg District and referred to the Lystrosaurus Assemblage Zone

Lystrosaurus Assemblage Zone

The Lystrosaurus Assemblage Zone is a geological stratum and a faunal zone of the Beaufort Group, of the South African Karoo. The name refers to Lystrosaurus, a genus of mammal-like reptile, a dominant life form of the Early Triassic Period, whose fossils have been found in that structure....

 of the Beaufort Group

Beaufort Group

The Beaufort Group is the third of the main subdivisions of the Karoo Supergroup of geological strata in Southern Africa. It follows conformably after the Ecca Group and consists essentially of sandstones and shales, deposited in the Karoo Basin from the Middle Permian to the early part of the...

 (Karoo Basin). It was first named by Sean P. Modesto, Hans-Dieter Sues and Ross J. Damiani in 2001

2001 in paleontology

-Newly named insects:-Newly named bony fishes:-Newly named amphibians:-Newly named turtles:-Ichthyosaurs:-Newly named basal lepidosauromorphs:-Newly named plesiosaurs:-Newly named sphenodonts:-Newly named basal archosauromorphs:...

 and the type species

Type species

In biological nomenclature, a type species is both a concept and a practical system which is used in the classification and nomenclature of animals and plants. The value of a "type species" lies in the fact that it makes clear what is meant by a particular genus name. A type species is the species...

 is Sauropareion anoplus. The generic name means "lizard", sauros, and "cheek", pareion from Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 in reference to the lizard-like appearance of the temporal region. The specific name comes from the Greek word anoplos, meaning "without arms or armour".

Phylogeny

Cladogram

Cladogram

A cladogram is a diagram used in cladistics which shows ancestral relations between organisms, to represent the evolutionary tree of life. Although traditionally such cladograms were generated largely on the basis of morphological characters, DNA and RNA sequencing data and computational...

 after Cisneros, 2008: