Sauropia: a new ‘smallest tetrapod’ from Middle Triassic South America
Müller et al 2026
described a poorly preserved Middle Triassic skull less than 1 cm long, tentatively assigned to the Procolophon clade “but the immature nature of the only known specimen makes this identity uncertain” according to Wikipedia – Sauropia.
The authors did not include
the much larger and much earlier Middle Permian Cotylorhynchus in their analysis. The general shapes of the skulls are similar. So is the rare ‘naris larger than the orbit’ trait. So are the tooth shapes and orientations.
Unfortunately Sauropia cannot be entered into the LRT due to its poor preservation.
Taxon exclusion remains the number one problem in paleontology.
The large reptile tree (LRT, 2340) taxa minimizes taxon exclusion.
The LRT does not recognize the clade ‘Parareptilia‘ found in the title of the Müller et al paper. The authors also failed to include the Procolophon sister, Diadectes, and a long list of basal Lepidosauromorpha in their cladogram, including any members of the Casesauria, which were shifted out of the Synapsida 15 years ago (link below).
References
Müller RT et al (3 co-authors) 2026. The smallest tetrapod from the Middle Triassic of South America: a new procolophonoid parareptile from the Ladinian of Southern Brazil. Nature Scientific Reports. 16: 866. doi:10.1038/s41598-026-35114-3
https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/the-myth-of-the-parareptilia/
Source: https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/2026/02/09/sauropia-a-new-smallest-tetrapod-from-middle-triassic-south-america/
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