Pumiliopareia

Pumiliopareia Temporal range: Changhsingian, 254–252 Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Life restoration of Pumiliopareia pricei
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Order:	Procolophonomorpha
Family:	†Pareiasauridae
(unranked):	†Pumiliopareiasauria
Genus:	Pumiliopareia Broom and Robinson, 1948
Type species
†Pumiliopareia pricei Broom and Robinson, 1948
Synonyms
Nanoparia pricei Broom and Robinson, 1948 Pareiasaurus pricei Broom and Robinson, 1948

Pumiliopareia is an extinct genus of pareiasaurid parareptile from the Permian period of South Africa.It is known from a complete skeleton with osteoderms.

Pumiliopareia was about 50 cm in length with a 12 cm skull. It is the smallest known member of the pareiasaurs, measuring only a fifth as long as some of its larger relatives. Like Anthodon, its body was entirely covered with osteoderms. In analyses that support a pareiasaur origin of turtles, the sister taxon of the testudines. However it specifically shares with turtles a single trait only: Ribs greatly expanded anteroposteriorly (i.e. wide).

Originally included under the genus Nanoparia, it was given its own name by Lee 1997 who found it did not form a clade with Nanoparia luckhoffi, the type species of that genus, and preferred to have monophyletic genera. Nanoparia may still be a paraphyletic genus, which is allowed in Linanean binomial taxonomy, or it may be that all three pumiliopareiasaurs are similar enough to belong to single genus.