Tuatara
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| Tuatara | ||||||||||||
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 Male tuatara
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| Conservation status | ||||||||||||
 Vulnerable |
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 black: range (northern New Zealand)
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Sphenodon punctatus (Gray, 1842) |
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Hatteria punctata, Gray 1842 |
Tuatara are reptiles. They look like lizards. There are two species of tuatara. Both are endemic to New Zealand. Lizards and snakes are the closest living relatives of the tuatara.
Tuatara are green-brown, and measure up to 80 cm from head to the end of their tail[1]. They have a spiny crest along the back. This crest is more pronounced in males (boys). They are very special in many ways. One of these is the pattern of their teeth. They have two rows of teeth in the upper jaw overlap one row on the lower jaw. This is unique among all living species.
Tuataras are also unusual because they have three eyes. They have two normal eyes. The third eye is on top of their head, in between their other eyes. It is not a real eye. Instead, it is a small patch of sensitive cells that help the tuatara see light and dark. Scientists call this a parietal eye. Scientists do not understand the parietal eye very well. They are researching it.
Tuataras do not have visible ears, but they can hear. They have a number of unique features in their skeleton (bones), some of them shared through common descent with fish.
The tuatara has been classified as an endangered species since 1895[2][3] (the second species, S. guntheri, was not known until 1989).[1] Tuatara, like many of New Zealand's native animals, are threatened by habitat loss and the introduced Polynesian Rat (Rattus exulans). They were extinct on the mainland, with the remaining populations confined to 32 offshore islands,[4] until the first mainland release into the heavily fenced and monitored Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in 2005.[5]
The name "tuatara" derives from the Māori language, and means "peaks on the back".[6]
[change] References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Reptiles:Tuatara. Animal Bytes. Zoological Society of San Diego (2007). Retrieved on 1 June 2007.
- ↑ Newman 1987.
- ↑ Cree, Allison; David Butler (1993). Tuatara Recovery Plan. Threatened Species Recovery Plan Series No.9. Threatened Species Unit, Department of Conservation, Government of New Zealand. Retrieved on 2 June 2007. ISBN 0478014627
- ↑ Facts about tuatara. Conservation: Native Species. Threatened Species Unit, Department of Conservation, Government of New Zealand. Retrieved on 10 February 2007.
- ↑ Tuatara Factsheet (Sphenodon punctatus). Sanctuary Wildlife. Karori Sanctuary Wildlife Trust. Retrieved on 2 June 2007.
- ↑ The Tuatara. Kiwi Conservation Club: Fact Sheets. Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Inc. (2007). Retrieved on 2 June 2007.
