A dinosaur age hatchling has been found in mainland New Zealand, the first of its kind to be seen there in over 200 years.
Although it may look like a lizard, it’s not. The tuatara (shown above) is perhaps best classified as the last living “proto-reptile”, and it’s the only surviving member of a distinct lineage that thrived 200 million years ago. In fact, it was misclassified as a lizard until 1867, when Albert Günther of the British Museum noted that the unique creature had features similar to birds, turtles and crocodiles.
Tuatara nests and eggs were discovered several months ago, but this is the first time an actual hatchling has been spotted. The living fossils have roused concerns over their extinction in the past, so this discovery brings increased optimism that the resilient reptilians may be making a comeback.
Previously, breeding tuataras were believed to be limited to 32 offshore islands which were still clear of introduced predators, like the rat, which had wiped them from the mainland. “We are all absolutely thrilled with this discovery,” said Raewyn Empson of the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in Wellington, where the youngin was found. “It means we have successfully re-established a breeding population back on the mainland, which is a massive breakthrough for New Zealand conservation.”
The remarkable lizard-like survivors have several unique features, such as a pronounced parietal “third eye”, which is actually a light-sensitive pineal gland on the top of their skull. Their brain and mode of locomotion still resembles that of amphibians, and their heart is more primitive than any other living reptile. Moreover, they take as long as 10 years to reach sexual maturity, so this hatchling still has a long way to go to ensure a next generation of tuataras.
Though if this survival story is a testament to anything, it’s that those primitive hearts are still beating strong.
Image Credit: digitaltrails on Flickr under a Creative Commons License
About Bryan Nelson
Is this story about tautaras or tuataras … ? I’m not herpetologist bur I think you’ve spelt its name incorrectly!
David,
Thanks for your comment. To answer your question: Both forms of the spelling are correct, although “tuatara” is more formal and more widely used– as is written in the article.
The name “tuatara” derives from the Māori language, and means “peaks on the back”. As with many other Māori loanwords, the plural form is now generally the same as the singular in formal New Zealand English usage. “Tuataras” remains common in less formal speech, particularly among older speakers.
Hi Bryan,
I had heard of tuataras before, so the use of tautara made me curious. I searched wikipedia for “tautara” which returned “No page with that title exists” but “tuatara” gets the page about the reptile in the article. Also, simply comparing the number of hits on Google for both forms, I disagree with your comments that tautara is more widely used.
However, based on your comments about the Māori origin of the name, I should stand corrected. Perhaps you could update the Wikipedia entry with that information too if you are confident about its correctness.
regards
David,
I actually got the comments about the name origins straight out of Wikipedia, from its entry on the tuatara… curious that it came up “not found”.
However, that may not have been the source of our disagreement, as originally penned– let me explain. I was assuming that you were at odds with the singular form of the word “tuatara”, preferring instead to call it a “tuataras”. Within the article, however, there were two typos spelling it a “tautara” instead– where the first ‘a’ and ‘u’ were exchanged. If this is what your qualms were really about, then thank you for pointing out the typo, and I apologize for the confusion and out of context explanation. I have corrected it.
I do not believe this.