left, 210px, Fossil elements. ''Osmolskina'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

of archosauriform reptile which lived during the

Early Triassic The Early Triassic is the first of three epochs of the Triassic Period of the geologic timescale. It spans the time between Ma and Ma (million years ago). Rocks from this epoch are collectively known as the Lower Triassic Series, which is a un ...

in what is now

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

. The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specime ...

, ''Osmolskina czatkowicensis'', was described by Magdalena Borsuk−Białynicka and Susan Evans in 2003. The generic name honors the late female Polish

paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

Halszka Osmólska Halszka Osmólska (September 15, 1930 – March 31, 2008) was a Polish paleontologist who had specialized in Mongolian dinosaurs. Biography She was born in 1930 in Poznań. In 1949, she began to study biology at Faculty of Biology and Earth Scie ...

. ''Osmolskina'' closely resembles the well-known genus ''

Euparkeria ''Euparkeria'' (; meaning "Parker's good animal", named in honor of W.K. Parker) is an extinct genus of archosauriform from the Middle Triassic of South Africa. It was a small reptile that lived between 245-230 million years ago, and was close to ...

''. The authors of the 2003 paper considered classifying ''Osmolskina'' within the family Euparkeriidae, noting the animal's close resemblance to ''

'', but concluded that "Euparkeriidae remains monotypic because no other genus can be assigned to it with confidence."

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q4189167 Prehistoric archosauriforms Early Triassic reptiles of Europe Fossil taxa described in 2003 Prehistoric reptile genera