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 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

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.