THE OLDEST OF LIVING REPTILES - GUATTERIA
This is the only modern representative of the order of beak-headed reptiles. Outwardly similar to a lizard. Along the back and tail there is a crest of triangular scales. Lives in burrows up to 1 m deep. Before the arrival of the Maori and Europeans, it inhabited the North and South Islands of New Zealand, but by the end of the 19th century it was exterminated there; preserved only on nearby islands in a special reserve. It is in the Red Book of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). Successfully bred at the Sydney Zoo.
Animals similar to the hatteria - homeosaurs - lived 140 million years ago in that part of our planet that has become Europe today.
From the famous English navigator James Cook, Europeans learned that in New Zealand there is “a gigantic lizard up to two and a half meters long and as thick as a man.” She supposedly "attacks sometimes even people and devours them." It must be said that Cook's story contains some exaggerations. The length of the tuatara along with the tail (male) is at most 75 cm (weight about a kilogram), and the tuatara does not hunt a person, but is content with more modest prey - insects, earthworms, sometimes lizards.
The Europeans, who followed Cook's footsteps to New Zealand, almost put an end to the history of beakheads, which is over 200 million years old. More precisely, not they themselves, but rats, pigs and dogs that arrived along with people. These animals exterminated the juveniles of the tuatara and ate its eggs. As a result, the hatteria almost disappeared. Now the hatteria is taken under strict protection: whoever catches or kills this animal runs the risk of going to jail. Few zoos in the world can boast tuatara in their collections. The famous English naturalist Gerald Durrell managed to get the offspring of tuatara in his zoo, which he was presented with by the New Zealand government. Thanks to environmental protection measures by the end of the 70s. In the 20th century, the number of tuatara increased slightly and reached 14 thousand copies, which brought these animals out of danger of extinction.
For an uninitiated person, the hatteria (Sphenodon punctatus) is simply a large, imposing lizard. Indeed, this animal has greenish-gray scaly skin, short strong paws with claws, a crest on the back, consisting of flat triangular scales, like agamas and iguanas (the local name for tuatara - tuatara - comes from the Maori word for "spiky ”), and a long tail.
However, the hatteria is not a lizard at all. The features of its structure are so unusual that a special detachment was established for it in the class of reptiles - Rhynchocephalia, which means "beak-headed" (from the Greek "rinhos" - beak and "kephalon" - head; an indication of the premaxilla bending down).
True, this did not happen immediately. In 1831, the famous zoologist Gray, having only the skulls of this animal, gave it the name Sphenodon. After 11 years, a whole copy of the tuatara fell into his hands, which he described as another reptile, giving it the name Hatteria punctata and referring it to lizards from the agam family. It wasn't until 30 years later that Gray established that Sphenodon and Hatteria were one and the same. But even before that, in 1867, it was shown that the similarity of the hatteria with lizards is purely external, and in terms of the internal structure (primarily the structure of the skull), Tuatara stands completely apart from all modern reptiles.
And then it turned out that the tuatara, now living exclusively on the islands of New Zealand, is a “living fossil”, the last representative of the once widespread group of reptiles that lived in Asia, Africa, North America and even Europe. But all other beakheads died out in the early Jurassic, and the tuatara managed to exist for almost 200 million years. It is amazing how little its structure has changed over this vast period of time, while lizards and snakes have reached such a variety.
A very interesting feature of the tuatara is the presence of a parietal (or third) eye that fits on the top of the head between two real eyes. Its function has not yet been elucidated. This organ has a lens and a retina with nerve endings, but is devoid of muscles and any adaptations for accommodation, or focusing. In a tuatara cub that has just hatched from an egg, the parietal eye is clearly visible - like a bare speck surrounded by scales that are arranged like flower petals. Over time, the "third eye" is overgrown with scales, and in adult tuatara it can no longer be seen. As experiments have shown, the tuatara cannot see with this eye, but it is sensitive to light and heat, which helps the animal regulate body temperature, dosing the time spent in the sun and in the shade.
However, all vertebrates have a similar formation in the upper part of the brain, only it is hidden under the skull.
As excavations show, not so long ago, tuatara were found in abundance on the main islands of New Zealand - North and South. But the Maori tribes who settled in these places in the 14th century significantly reduced the number of Tuatars. An important role was played in this by animals that arrived with people, which are not characteristic of the fauna of New Zealand. True, some scientists believe that the hatteria died due to changes in climatic conditions. Until 1870, it was still found on the North Island, but at the beginning of the 20th century it was preserved only on 20 small islands, of which 3 are located in the Cook Strait, and the rest - off the northeast coast of the North Island.
The view of these islands is gloomy - cold leaden waves break on the rocky shores shrouded in mist. The already sparse vegetation was badly damaged by sheep, goats, pigs and other wild animals. Now, every single pig, cat, and dog has been removed from the islands where Tuatara populations have survived, and the rodents have been exterminated. All these animals caused great damage to tuatarams, eating their eggs and juveniles. Of the vertebrates on the islands, only reptiles and numerous sea birds remained, arranging their colonies here.
Female tuatara are smaller and almost twice as light as males. These reptiles feed on insects, spiders, earthworms and snails. They love water, often lie in it for a long time and swim well. But the tuatara runs badly.
Hatteria is a nocturnal animal, and, unlike many other reptiles, it is active at relatively low temperatures - + 6 ° ... + 8 ° C - this is another interesting feature of its biology. All life processes in the hatteria are slow, the metabolism is low. There is usually about 7 seconds between two breaths, but a tuatara can stay alive without taking a single breath for an hour.
Winter time - from mid-March to mid-August - tuatara spend in burrows, falling into hibernation. In spring, females dig special small burrows, where with the help of their paws and mouth they carry a clutch of 8–15 eggs, each of which is about 3 cm in diameter and is enclosed in a soft shell. From above, the masonry is covered with earth, grass, leaves or moss. The incubation period lasts about 15 months, which is much longer than that of other reptiles.
Tuatara grows slowly and reaches puberty no earlier than 20 years. That is why we can assume that she belongs to the number of outstanding centenarians of the animal world. It is possible that the age of some males exceeds 100 years.
What else is this animal famous for? Tuatara is one of the few reptiles with a real voice. Her sad, hoarse cries can be heard on foggy nights or when someone bothers her.
Another amazing feature of the tuatara is its coexistence with gray petrels, which nest on the islands in self-dug holes. Hatteria often settles in these holes, despite the presence of birds there, and sometimes, apparently, ruins their nests - judging by the finds of chicks with bitten heads. So such a neighborhood, apparently, does not bring great joy to the petrels, although usually birds and reptiles coexist quite peacefully - the tuatara prefers other prey, which it goes in search of at night, and in the daytime the petrels fly into the sea for fish. When the birds migrate, the tuatara hibernates.
The total number of living tuatara is now about 100,000 individuals. The largest colony is located on Stephens Island in the Cook Strait - there, on an area of 3 square meters. km lives 50,000 tuatara - an average of 480 individuals per 1 ha. On small - less than 10 hectares - islets, populations of tuatara do not exceed 5,000 individuals. The New Zealand government has long recognized the value of the amazing reptile for science, and there has been a strict conservation regime on the islands for about 100 years. You can visit them only with special permission, and strict liability is established for violators.
Tuatara are not eaten and their skins are not in commercial demand. They live on remote islands, where there are neither people nor predators, and are well adapted to the conditions existing there. So, apparently, nothing threatens the survival of these unique reptiles at present. They can safely while away their days on secluded islands to the delight of biologists, who, among other things, are trying to figure out the reasons why the tuatara did not disappear in those distant times when all its relatives died out.
Perhaps we should learn from the people of New Zealand and how to protect their natural resources. As Gerald Durrell wrote, “Ask any New Zealander why they guard the tuatara. And they will consider your question simply inappropriate and say that, firstly, this is a one-of-a-kind creature, secondly, zoologists are not indifferent to it, and thirdly, if it disappears, it will disappear forever.
From the book 100 Great Wildlife Records authorWORLD OF AMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES THE MOST OLD OF LIVING REPTILES - THE GUATTERIA This is the only modern representative of the order of beak-headed reptiles. Outwardly similar to a lizard. Along the back and tail there is a crest of triangular scales. Lives in burrows up to 1 m deep.
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Tuatara lizard, tuatara - justifiably bears the title of a living fossil. Tuatara is the last member of the Beakhead squad that has existed since the time of the dinosaurs.
Habitat until the 14th century of our century, it met on the South Island, but with the advent of the Maori tribes in this area, the population disappeared.
On the North Island, the last Tuatara reptiles were seen at the beginning of the 20th century. Today, the oldest reptile, the New Zealand tuatara, lives exclusively on small islands near New Zealand.
Their territories were specially cleared of wild animals, leaving only tuatara and seabirds among vertebrates that use the islands to build nests.
Tuatara is very similar to ordinary lizards. But these representatives of the animal world are not them. There is a special difference between the two species, the structure of the skull - in relation to the brain box, the roof of the skull of the hatteria, the sky and the upper jaw are mobile.
The brain of a reptile is tiny, more suitable in size for amphibians than reptiles. During its life, its color can repeatedly change from brown-green to gray.
Once a year there is a molt, and the top layer of the skin is updated. They have short clawed feet, a long tail, and a crest of triangular flat scales running along the spine, more developed in males.
The weight of an adult Hatteria reaches 1 kilogram, the length is up to 65-70 centimeters. The females are always smaller than the male.
Reptiles populate old bird nests or hide in new ones while the owners are on a daytime hunt. They are predominantly nocturnal, spend a lot of time in the water and run very poorly. The greatest activity is manifested at low temperatures within 6-8 degrees above zero.
Due to the low rate of metabolic processes, the tuatara or tuatara breathe with a difference of 7 seconds. They grow slowly, and spend the winter (from March to August) in hibernation. The main diet of the New Zealand tuatara is insects, spiders, snails. Occasionally, they can make eggs or chicks of nearby birds their prey.
Lizard-like animals reach sexual maturity only at 15-20 years of age. Their slow development causes the unhurried development of all processes: the female's pregnancy lasts from 40 to 45 weeks, and the incubation period of the laid eggs is 15 months.
Hatteria lays its eggs in the spring. They dig small minks, in their mouths and in their paws they transfer masonry, in which there are up to 15 eggs, and sprinkle with moss, earth, leaves.
Scientists from the University of Wellington conducted an interesting experiment. They established a relationship between temperature and sex of hatched tuatara babies. When incubated at a temperature of +18 degrees, only females were born, and at +22 degrees, only males were born.
The best indicator was the temperature of +21 degrees - with it, an equal number of cubs of both sexes were born.
Feral living creatures, dogs and rats that previously lived on the islands, posed a great danger to tuatara. They ate eggs and young reptiles, which threatened their survival. Today, the settlement of the islands, which are inhabited by living fossils, by mammals is carefully controlled by man.
Hatteria - at first glance, a large, impressive-looking lizard. The scaly skin of the tuatara is painted in a dull olive-green or greenish-gray color, there are small and larger yellow spots on the sides of the body and limbs. And there are short strong paws with claws. A low crest extends from the back of the head along the back and tail, consisting of flat triangular vertical plates-scales, like in agamas and iguanas. Therefore, the local name of the hatteria - tuatara - comes from the Maori word for "prickly". The body of the tuatara ends with a long tail.
Pupils of large eyes located on the sides of the head, in the form of a vertical slit. The tuatara does not have eardrums or middle ear cavities. On the upper side of the head, somewhat behind the eyes, under the skin, a peculiar organ is hidden - the so-called parietal eye. In adult tuatara, it is not outwardly noticeable, but in young ones (six months old) that have recently hatched from eggs, it looks like a patch of skin surface that is not covered with scales.
The parietal eye of the tuatara is a bubble-shaped organ with a layer of light-sensitive cells and a kind of lens. The function of the parietal eye (also present in some lizards) has not yet been fully elucidated. In any case, it has photosensitivity, but most likely it does not serve as an organ of vision, but perceives only the degree of illumination, which depends on the level of solar radiation. Such an organ helps the animal to regulate body temperature by choosing a place and posture in relation to the sun's rays. There is a hypothesis that through this eye, young animals receive vitamin D through ultraviolet rays, which helps them develop and grow faster. Already at the age of 4-6 months, it is overgrown with scales.
The Tuatara skeleton combines a very primitive basic structure with some features of specialization. In the temporal region of the skull there are two pairs of pits - the upper and lateral temporal pits, from the edges of which the jaw muscles begin (diapsid type). The upper and lower pits of each side of the skull are separated by the bony superior temporal arch, formed by the postorbital and squamous bones, the lower temporal fossa from below is bounded by the inferior temporal arch, which in the tuatara is formed by the zygomatic bone. Such a diapsid structure of the temporal region of the skull was also found in the ancestors of modern lizards and snakes, it is also preserved in crocodiles and was present in many fossil reptiles, which are grouped according to this feature into the diapsid group (possibly related by distant kinship).
For a long time, the tuatara was looked upon as a representative of these primitive forms that has survived to this day. However, although the tuatara did retain many primitive features, the beakheads are by no means the ancestors of any other groups of reptiles, but are a blind lateral branch of the primitive diapsid reptiles (eosuchians). An interesting feature has been preserved in the skull of the tuatara: the upper jaw, palate and roof of the skull are mobile relative to the braincase (at least in young individuals). This phenomenon is called skull kinetics. Due to kinetism, the anterior end of the maxilla can be bent down and retracted to some extent with simultaneous complex movements of other elements of the skull. Terrestrial vertebrates inherited the kinetism of the skull from their ancestors, lobe-finned fish.
Among scientists, there is still no consensus on the functions of the kinetics of the skull. Probably, kinetism serves to better hold the seized prey in the predator's jaws, but at the same time it can also provide cushioning of the impact of the jaws and jerks of the prey when these shocks are transmitted to the brain box. Among modern reptiles, in addition to the tuatara, lizards and snakes have more complex and effective forms of skull kinetics. Primitive in the skull of the tuatara is the direct articulation of the vomers and pterygoid bones. Features of high specialization - the loss of the lacrimal and superior temporal bones.
The teeth of the tuatara are simple wedge-shaped; they grow to the upper edge of the lower and lower edge of the upper jaws (acrodont). In adult animals, the teeth are worn out so much that the bite is already made by the very edges of the jaws, the covers of which are keratinized. The second row of teeth is located on the palatine bone; the teeth of the lower jaw enter between these two dentitions. The vertebrae retain a primitive biconcave (amphicoelous) structure. The lost tail regenerates. In addition to the usual ribs, bearing backward uncinate processes, there is also a series of so-called abdominal ribs located between the sternum and pelvis under the skin. Among modern reptiles, both the hook-shaped processes and the ventral ribs, except for the tuatara, have been preserved only in crocodiles.
In the shoulder girdle, in addition to the scapula and coracoid, there are clavicles and an unpaired interclavicle. The internal structure of the tuatara is close to that of lizards, differing in some primitive features. So, in the heart there is a venous sinus (sinus), where the hollow veins flow. This section is present in the heart of fish (where the cardinal veins or Cuvier ducts flow into it) and in the heart of amphibians, but is absent as a special section of the heart in other modern reptiles. The cloaca of the tuatara, like that of lizards, has the form of a transverse slit.
Tuatara, the three-eyed reptile that survived the dinosaurs March 31st, 2017
The most ancient reptile that has survived from the time of the dinosaurs is the three-eyed lizard tuatara, or tuatara (lat. Sphenodon punctatus) - a species of reptiles from the beak-head order.
For an uninitiated person, the hatteria (Sphenodon punctatus) is simply a large, imposing lizard. Indeed, this animal has greenish-gray scaly skin, short strong paws with claws, a crest on the back, consisting of flat triangular scales, like agamas and iguanas (the local name for tuatara - tuatara - comes from the Maori word for "spiky ”), and a long tail.
You live tuatara in New Zealand. Now its representatives have become smaller than they were before.
According to the memoirs of James Cook, on the islands of New Zealand there were tuatars about three meters long and as thick as a person, which they ate from time to time.
Today, the largest specimens are just over a meter long. At the same time, the male tuatara, together with the tail, reaches a length of 65 cm and weighs about 1 kg, and females are much smaller than males in size and half as light.
Tuatar is distinguished as a separate species of reptile, standing apart from all modern reptiles.
Photo 3. 
Although in appearance the tuatara resemble large, impressive species of lizards, especially iguanas, this resemblance is only external and has nothing to do with tuatara lizards. In terms of internal structure, they have much more in common with snakes, turtles, crocodiles and fish, as well as extinct ichthyosaurs, megalosaurs and teleosaurs.
The features of its structure are so unusual that a special detachment was established for it in the class of reptiles - Rhynchocephalia, which means "beak-headed" (from the Greek "rynchos" - beak and "kephalon" - head; an indication of the premaxilla bending down).
A very interesting feature of the tuatara is the presence of a parietal (or third) eye, located on the crown of the head between two real eyes *. Its function has not yet been elucidated. This organ has a lens and a retina with nerve endings, but is devoid of muscles and any adaptations for accommodation, or focusing. In a tuatara cub that has just hatched from an egg, the parietal eye is clearly visible - like a naked speck surrounded by scales that are arranged like flower petals. Over time, the "third eye" is overgrown with scales, and in adult tuatara it can no longer be seen. As experiments have shown, the tuatara cannot see with this eye, but it is sensitive to light and heat, which helps the animal regulate body temperature, dosing the time spent in the sun and in the shade.
The tuatara's third eye has a lens and retina with nerve endings connected to the brain, but lacks muscles and any adaptations for accommodation, or focus.
Experiments have shown that the tuatara cannot see with this eye, but it is sensitive to light and heat, which helps the animal regulate body temperature, dosing the time spent in the sun and in the shade.
The third eye, but less developed, is also found in tailless amphibians (frogs), lampreys, and some lizards and fish.
Tuatara has a third eye only six months after birth, then it overgrows with scales and becomes almost invisible.
In 1831, the famous zoologist Gray, having only the skulls of this animal, gave it the name Sphenodon. After 11 years, a whole copy of the tuatara fell into his hands, which he described as another reptile, giving it the name Hatteria punctata and referring it to lizards from the agam family. It wasn't until 30 years later that Gray established that Sphenodon and Hatteria were one and the same. But even before that, in 1867, it was shown that the similarity of the hatteria with lizards is purely external, and in terms of the internal structure (primarily the structure of the skull), the tuatara stands completely apart from all modern reptiles.
And then it turned out that the tuatara, now living exclusively on the islands of New Zealand, is a “living fossil”, the last representative of the once common group of reptiles that lived in Asia, Africa, North America and even Europe. But all other beakheads died out in the early Jurassic, and the tuatara managed to exist for almost 200 million years. It is amazing how little its structure has changed over this vast period of time, while lizards and snakes have reached such a variety.
As excavations show, not so long ago, tuatara were found in abundance on the main islands of New Zealand - North and South. But the Maori tribes, who settled in these places in the XIV century, exterminated the Tuatars almost completely. An important role was played in this by the dogs and rats that came along with the people. True, some scientists believe that the hatteria died due to changes in climatic and environmental conditions. Until 1870, she was still found on the North Island, but at the beginning of the 20th century. has survived only on 20 small islands, of which 3 are in the Cook Strait, and the rest are off the northeast coast of the North Island.
The view of these islands is gloomy - cold leaden waves break on the rocky shores shrouded in mist. The already sparse vegetation was badly damaged by sheep, goats, pigs and other wild animals. Now, every single pig, cat, and dog has been removed from the islands where Tuatara populations have survived, and the rodents have been exterminated. All these animals caused great damage to tuatarams, eating their eggs and juveniles. Of the vertebrates on the islands, only reptiles and numerous sea birds remained, arranging their colonies here.
An adult male tuatara reaches a length (including tail) of 65 cm and weighs about 1 kg. Females are smaller and almost twice as light. These reptiles feed on insects, spiders, earthworms and snails. They love water, often lie in it for a long time and swim well. But the tuatara runs badly.
Hatteria is a nocturnal animal, and unlike many other reptiles, it is active at relatively low temperatures - + 6o ... + 8oC - this is another interesting feature of its biology. All life processes in the hatteria are slow, the metabolism is low. Between two breaths usually takes about 7 seconds, but the tuatara can remain alive without taking a single breath for an hour.
Winter time - from mid-March to mid-August - tuatara spend in burrows, falling into hibernation. In spring, females dig special small burrows, where with the help of their paws and mouth they carry a clutch of 8–15 eggs, each of which is about 3 cm in diameter and is enclosed in a soft shell. From above, the masonry is covered with earth, grass, leaves or moss. The incubation period lasts about 15 months, which is much longer than that of other reptiles.
Tuatara grows slowly and reaches puberty no earlier than 20 years. That is why we can assume that she belongs to the number of outstanding centenarians of the animal world. It is possible that the age of some males exceeds 100 years.
What else is this animal famous for? Tuatara is one of the few reptiles with a real voice. Her sad, hoarse cries can be heard on foggy nights or when someone bothers her.
Another amazing feature of the tuatara is its coexistence with gray petrels, which nest on the islands in self-dug holes. Hatteria often settles in these holes, despite the presence of birds there, and sometimes, apparently, destroys their nests - judging by the finds of chicks with bitten heads. So such a neighborhood, apparently, does not bring great joy to the petrels, although usually birds and reptiles coexist quite peacefully - the tuatara prefers other prey, which it goes in search of at night, and in the daytime the petrels fly into the sea for fish. When the birds migrate, the tuatara hibernates.
The total number of living tuatara is now about 100,000 individuals. The largest colony is located on Stephens Island in the Cook Strait - 50,000 tuatars live there on an area of 3 km2 - an average of 480 individuals per 1 ha. On small islands less than 10 hectares in size, populations of tuatara do not exceed 5,000 individuals. The New Zealand government has long recognized the value of the amazing reptile for science, and there has been a strict conservation regime on the islands for about 100 years. You can visit them only with special permission and strict liability is established for violators. In addition, tuatara are successfully bred at the Sydney Zoo in Australia.
Tuatara are not eaten and their skins are not in commercial demand. They live on remote islands, where there are neither people nor predators, and are well adapted to the conditions existing there. So, apparently, nothing threatens the survival of these unique reptiles at present. They can safely while away their days on secluded islands to the delight of biologists, who, among other things, are trying to figure out the reasons why the tuatara did not disappear in those distant times when all its relatives died out.
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Hatteria is a reptile that has three eyes. She lives in New Zealand. Scientists have found that they began their existence somewhere two hundred million years ago and did not succumb to changes during the entire time of their existence on the planet.
An interesting fact is that the tuatara could survive in such difficult living conditions the largest creatures on Earth - dinosaurs.
The discoverer of the tuatara is considered to be James Cook, who saw the tuatara during his travels in New Zealand. Looking at the hatteria for the first time, it may seem that this is an ordinary lizard. The length of the tuatara is 65-75 centimeters, taking into account the tail. The weight of the hatteria does not exceed 1 kilogram 300 grams.
On average, she lives 60 years, but sometimes the age reached 100 years. Readiness to enter into sexual intercourse appears in tuatara after reaching 15-20 years. Mating occurs at intervals of four years. Hatteria babies are born in almost 12-15 months. Due to such a long period of reproduction of their own kind, tuatara too quickly decrease in number.
Particular activity was observed at night. The tuatara has a superbly developed parietal eye. This part of the body has a connection with the emergence and function of the pineal gland. The reptile has an olive-green or greenish-gray color, and yellowish spots are visible on its sides. On the back is a crest, parts of which resemble triangles. That is why sometimes the reptile is called "prickly".
Hatteria cannot be attributed to lizards due to the structure of the head. Therefore, scientists in the XIX century. proposed to separate them into a separate detachment - beakheads. The thing is that reptiles have a peculiar structure of the skull. The uniqueness lies in the fact that in young tuataras the upper jaw, upwards of the skull and palate move in relation to the brain box. In scientific circles, this is called skull kinetics. That is why the upper part of the head of the tuatara tends to tilt down and change position to the opposite during the movements of the rest of the skull.
This skill was transferred to reptiles by lobe-finned fish, which are their ancient ancestors. It should be noted that kinetism is also inherent in some varieties of lizards and snakes. In addition, today the number of hatteria on the planet is sharply decreasing. In this regard, this type of reptile is subject to special control and protection.
»Tuatara, better known as tuatara, is the only beakhead reptile left in the world. Perhaps its existence is not so well known to ordinary people, but in the scientific world, information about the last of the living creatures of the prehistoric fauna has spread far beyond its habitats. They are the last witnesses of the animal world of the dinosaur era and a real treasure of Polynesia.
They represent a large and ancient lineage of vertebrates and are a key link to the ancestors that evolved into dinosaurs, modern reptiles, birds and mammals. Once widespread on the Gondwana continent, the species has become extinct everywhere, with the exception of a small group that lives on several New Zealand islands.
The oldest fossilized tuatars are found in Jurassic rocks, sand dunes, peat bogs and caves. Fossil evidence suggests that the tuatara was once distributed throughout the country. The first researchers classified the tuatara as a lizard, but in 1867, Dr. Gunther from the British Museum, studying its skeleton in detail, proposed a different classification, which was accepted by the entire scientific world. They became the extreme taxon of their group on the evolutionary tree, intriguing with their mixed properties. With the skull structure and rudimentary reproductive organ of birds, the ears of turtles and the brain of amphibians, their hearts and lungs were formed before the appearance of living animals. The presence of a "third eye" located in the upper part of the skull, in the form of a scaly growth, is also striking.
Cold-blooded and slow, the ancient tuatara are a kind of plump-cheeked and long-tailed iguana, with spikes on the neck, back and tail, as long as a human forearm. Their name, translated from the Maori language, means "peaks on the back."
Tuatara has one row of teeth in the lower jaw and two rows in the upper. The upper jaw is rigidly attached to the skull. Their teeth are extensions of the jawbones. When they wear out, they are not replaced, but they do not fall out either. This distinctive unique feature affects the mechanism of absorption of food.
Newborn individuals have a horny non-calcified, so-called egg tooth, which is provided by nature to facilitate the emergence from the egg. Shortly after birth, this tooth falls out. Unlike lizards, the vertebrae of the tuatara are more like the vertebral bones of fish and some other amphibians. Their bony ribs are more typical of crocodiles than lizards. Males do not have a sex organ. Tuatara is one of the least studied and most ancient animals.
Tuataria reach peak activity when their body temperature is 12-17 degrees Celsius. This is a record among reptiles for the minimum temperature suitable for life. Perhaps this is the reason why the species was able to survive in the temperate climate of New Zealand. Other reptiles are active when their body temperature is between 25 and 38 degrees Celsius. Another remarkable feature of the tuatara is the rate of respiration. They breathe air only once an hour. There is no need for the species to drink water.
Tuataras are mostly active at night, but occasionally come out during the day to bask in the sun. They live in burrows that are sometimes shared with seabirds. The house is located underground in burrows that form labyrinths of tunnels. In the spring, they happen to be supported by bird eggs and newly hatched chicks.
Their main food is beetles, worms, centipedes and spiders, they can eat lizards, frogs, and other small invertebrates. They go out to eat mostly at night. It happens that adult tuatara eat their tiny offspring. Older individuals should eat soft food, as do many older individuals.
They are like sprinters over short distances, they can move at maximum speed for a short time, after which, when exhausted, they must stop and rest. The heart rate is only six to eight times per minute, while they can move around without food. In winter, they fall into a state similar to lethargy and so deep that they seem dead. Tuatara are often referred to as living or relic "fossils", along with coelacanth fish, horseshoe crabs, nautiluses, and the ginkgo tree.
Like many other New Zealand animals, the tuatara is a long-liver. They reach reproductive maturity at about 15 years of age. Reproductive ability is maintained for many decades. Females are able to lay eggs only once every few years. The maximum lifespan has not been precisely studied. Some of the living individuals have reached the age of 80 in captivity, under the vigilant supervision of specialists, but still seem to be quite energetic.
Tuatara are quite muscular, have sharp claws and partially webbed feet, and can swim well. In case of danger, they beat with their tail, bite and scratch. Males can weigh more than a kilogram, females rarely exceed five hundred grams. They grow faster in captivity than in the wild. Tuataras are unusual in that they enjoy cool weather. They do not survive temperatures above 25 degrees Celsius, but survive temperatures below five degrees by hiding in burrows. The main activity is seen at temperatures ranging from seven to twenty-two degrees Celsius, and most reptiles hibernate at such low temperatures.
The male has a distinctive spiked crest along his neck and back, which he can unfurl to attract females or fight enemies. The color of tuatara ranges from olive green, brown to orange-red. Coloration may change over time. They molt once a year.
Sexual maturity is reached at about 20 years of age. Reproduction is slow. After mating in the summer, females lay eggs only the following spring. Eggs burrow into the soil. Where they remain until their birth for 13-14 months. A total of 6 to 10 eggs are laid.
Hatterias have an unusual feature. The sex of the offspring depends on the ambient temperature. If the soil temperature is relatively cool, not only will the egg stay in the ground longer, but a female is more likely to emerge. In order for a male to be born, a sufficiently warm temperature is required. In a little over a year, children hatch, who must take care of themselves. Newly hatched individuals, no larger than a paper clip. It may take two decades before the cub matures, if during this time it does not become someone's prey.
Tuatara lives only in New Zealand and the nearby Cook Islands. All reptiles in New Zealand are legally protected. They feature in Maori legends and are considered by some tribes to be the custodians of knowledge. They were almost completely destroyed by the rats who sailed to the isolated continent with the first Polynesian explorers. The rats also drove the tuatara from the mainland to the outlying islands. Today, tuatars survive only on 35 small, predator-free islets.
Currently, the tuatara lives on about 35 islands. Seven of these islands are located in the Cook Strait region - between Wellington on the southern edge of the North Island and Marlborough - Nelson at the tip of the South Island. In total, there are about 45,500 animals here. Another 10,000 tuatara are distributed around the North Island - near Auckland, Northland, the Coromandel Peninsula and the Bay of Plenty.
Despite the fact that a small number of tuatara are in the wild and quite successful programs have been launched to breed them in captivity, the species remains under the threat of destruction.
Before the advent of humans, their only natural enemies were large birds.
Together with the arrival of Polynesian settlers in New Zealand in 1250-1300, they brought with them the kiore, a small Pacific rat. Kiore have become the main threat to the population. By the middle of the 19th century, when the first European inhabitants settled here, the tuatara on the mainland had almost died out.
At that time, on some islands, the tuatara managed to find temporary shelter, but they were eventually captured by rats and other predators that arrived along with European settlers. Since an adult can reach a length of 75 centimeters, it was young specimens that were most at risk from predators such as cats, dogs, ferrets, rats and opossums.
Already in 1895, the tuatara were under legal protection, but their numbers continued to decline rapidly. Hundreds of copies were sent abroad to museums and private collections. Poaching is still a problem.
In the mid-eighties of the last century, the Wildlife Service and its successor, the Endangered Species Conservation Department, began to develop ways to remove rats from the islands. In addition to eradicating predators, other tuatara protection measures have been introduced, such as egg collection and incubation, captive breeding programs, and relocation to rat-free islands.
The Maori experience of Hauturu Island, commonly known as Little Barrier, located in Hauraki Bay between Auckland and the Coromandel Peninsula, is a wonderful example of saving rare animals from extinction through a conservation initiative. In 1991, after the launch of the program, no traces of animals were found on the island. After 14 years, the researchers found eight adults. Providing them with a safe habitat, breeding offspring in incubators, the residents returned these wonderful animals to the wild.
Today, New Zealand spends huge amounts of money fighting the mammals that have artificially inhabited the islands. The main pests of endemic animals are rats and opossums. The government has set itself an ambitious goal: to clear the country of imported predators by 2050. At the moment the project is at the stage of development of technologies necessary for its implementation. At the moment, according to the assurances of the Ministry of Nature Protection, about a hundred islands have been cleared of countless predators that have captured them. National and regional pest control programs are in place. The cost of making and setting traps, poisoning, and developing new technologies is more than $70 million a year. Endangered Animal Conservation staff are actively working with universities, zoos and other government agencies to protect the remaining population.
There are four main conservation strategies:
The idea of settling more southerly areas is one of the most effective. The wild tuatara habitat on the small islands to the north is vulnerable to the effects of climate change, rising sea levels, rising temperatures and extreme weather. The Tuatar have a long future ahead of them, provided they find humane and effective ways to destroy their enemies.
Until 1998, tuatara could only be found in reserves on islands that were closed to the public. As an experiment, observation of life was possible on Matthew Island in Wellington harbor and on an island near Auckland. People rushed to see firsthand the result of the work of successful environmental projects to restore the population. Since 2007, they have been seen at the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, 10 minutes from Wellington city centre.
Tuatara is the symbol of New Zealand. They are represented in paintings and immortalized in sculptures, postage stamps and coins. From 1967 to 2006, a lizard perched on a rocky shore was featured on the nickel.
It was not difficult for them to survive all the known global catastrophes, practically without changing outwardly. Horseshoe crabs can rightfully be called "blue-blooded" animals. Their blood, unlike ours, has a blue color, because it is saturated with copper, and not with iron, like human.
Horseshoe crab blood has amazing properties - when it reacts with microbes, clots form. It is in this way that horseshoe crabs make a barrier against microbes. A reagent is made from the blood of horseshoe crabs and medicines are checked for purity with its help.
For example, shark teeth grow throughout life, the largest sharks can reach 18 meters in length. Sharks have a wonderful sense of smell - they smell blood at a distance of hundreds of meters. Sharks practically do not feel pain, because their body produces a kind of "opium", which dulls pain.
Sharks are amazingly adaptable. For example, if there is not enough oxygen, they can “turn off” part of the brain and consume less energy. Sharks can also regulate the salinity of the water by producing special means. The vision of a shark is several times better than that of cats. In dirty water, they see up to 15 meters away. 
Cockroaches can live for some time without a head - because they breathe with the cells of the body. They are excellent runners. Some cockroaches run about 75 cm in a second. This is a very good result for their height. And their incredible endurance is evidenced by the fact that they withstand radiation radiation almost 13 times more than a person.
Cockroaches can live without water for about a month, without water - a week. Their female retains the male's seed for some time and can fertilize herself.
Crocodiles are amazing animals. They don't seem to do anything for nothing. To facilitate the digestion of food, crocodiles swallow stones. It also helps them dive deeper.
In the blood of a crocodile there is a natural antibiotic that helps them not to get sick. Their average life expectancy is 50 years, but some individuals can live up to 100 years. Crocodiles are not trainable, and they can be considered the most dangerous animals on the planet.
If the temperature in the nest where the female laid her eggs is high, females will be born, if it is low, only males will be born.
Tuatara is similar to an iguana or lizard. But this is just a resemblance. Tuataria established a separate detachment - beakheads. This animal has a "third eye" on the back of its head. Hatterias have slowed down metabolic processes, so they grow very slowly, but they easily live up to 100 years.
The web could not be made artificially in any laboratory. And those spiders that were sent into space spun a three-dimensional web.
It is known that some spiders can live up to 30 years. The largest known spider is almost 30 cm long, while the smallest is half a millimeter.
Ants are very smart, strong and organized animals. We can say that they have their own civilization. They have order in everything - they are divided into three castes, each of which is engaged in its own business.
Ants are very good at adapting to circumstances. Their population is the largest on Earth. To imagine how many there are, imagine that there are about a million ants per inhabitant of the planet. Ants are also long-lived. Sometimes queens can live up to 20 years! And they are amazingly smart - ants can train their fellows to find food.
Platypuses are excellent swimmers, they easily get their own food from the river bottom with the help of their beak. Platypuses spend almost 10 hours a day underwater.
Platypuses have not been bred in captivity, and there are quite a few of them left in the wild today. Therefore, animals are listed in the International Red Book.
I wonder if a person can live on Earth for so long?
THE GUATTERIA IS A REPTILE THAT APPEARED ON EARTH OVER 220 MILLION YEARS AGO! For an uninitiated person, the hatteria (Sphenodon punctatus) is simply a large, imposing lizard. Indeed, this animal has greenish-gray scaly skin, short strong legs with claws, a crest on the back, consisting of flat triangular scales, like an iguana, and a long tail. However, the tuatara is not exactly a lizard. Its structure is so unusual that a special detachment was established for it in the class of reptiles - Rhynchocephalia, which means "beak-headed" (from the Greek "rinhos" - beak and "kephalon" - head; an indication of the premaxilla bending down).
In 1831, the famous zoologist Gray, having only the skulls of this animal, gave it the name Sphenodon. After 11 years, a whole copy of the tuatara fell into his hands, which he described as another reptile, giving it the name Hatteria punctata and referring it to lizards from the agam family. It wasn't until 30 years later that Gray established that Sphenodon and Hatteria were one and the same. But even before that, in 1867, it was shown that the similarity of the hatteria with lizards is purely external, and in terms of the internal structure of the tuatara it stands completely apart from all reptiles.
And then it turned out that the tuatara, now living exclusively on the islands of New Zealand, is a "living fossil", the last representative of the once common group of reptiles that lived in Asia, Africa, North America, even Europe. All other beakheads died out in the early Jurassic, and the tuatara managed to survive for almost 200 million years. During this time, its structure has hardly changed, and lizards and snakes have reached a great diversity.
The peculiarity of the tuatara is the parietal (third) eye between the two real eyes. Its function has not been elucidated. It has a lens and a retina with nerve endings, but lacks muscle and is not adapted for focusing. In a tuatara cub that has just hatched from an egg, the parietal eye is clearly visible - like a bare spot surrounded by scales. Over time, the "third eye" is overgrown with scales, and in adult tuatara it is not visible. As experiments have shown, the tuatara cannot see with this eye, but it is sensitive to light and heat, which helps the animal regulate body temperature, dosing the time spent in the sun and in the shade.
AS THE EXcavations SHOW, NOT SO LONG OLD TUTTERS HAVE ABUNDANCE were found on the main islands of New Zealand - North and South. But the Maori tribes who settled there in the 14th century exterminated the Tuatars almost completely. True, some scientists believe that the number of hatteria has fallen due to changes in climatic and environmental conditions. Until 1870, she was still found on the North Island, but at the beginning of the 20th century. survived only on 20 small islands, of which 3 are in the Cook Strait, and the rest are off the northeast coast of the North Island. The view of these islands is gloomy - cold leaden waves break on the rocky shores shrouded in mist. The already sparse vegetation was badly damaged by sheep, goats, pigs and other wild animals. Now, every single pig, cat, and dog has been removed from the islands where Tuatara populations have survived, and the rodents have been exterminated. These animals caused great damage to tuatarams by eating their eggs and juveniles. Of the vertebrates on the islands, only reptiles and seabirds remained.
The color of the tuatara is fickle, they can change their color during their lives and shed their skin once a year. The length of adult animals varies from 40 cm (females) to 60 cm (males). It is assumed that in prehistoric times they were twice as large. There are no ear openings, the skull has two pairs of temporal fossae and two pairs of cranial arches. The parietal eye at the top of the head is well developed and functions in young tuataras, perhaps like ordinary eyes, and may have other functions. There is a hypothesis that through this eye, young animals receive vitamin D through ultraviolet rays and this helps them develop and grow faster. Like lizards, tuatara can shed their tail, which then grows back.
Tuatars feed on insects, spiders, earthworms and snails, like to lie in the water for a long time and swim well. But the tuatara runs badly. But even more important, at least from the point of view of paleontologists, she, like some ancient reptiles, has two complete bony arches in the temporal region of the skull. According to scientists, the skull of a modern lizard, open from the sides, comes from just such an ancient skull of a biarch type. Consequently, the tuatara retains the features of the ancestral forms of both lizards and snakes. But unlike them, it has not changed much over millions of years. In addition to the usual ribs, the tuatara also has a series of so-called abdominal ribs, which among modern reptiles are preserved only in crocodiles. 
THE TEETH OF THE TUATARA IS WEDGE-SHAPED. THEY GROW TO THE TOP edge of the lower and lower edge of the upper jaws. The second row of teeth is located on the palatine bone. When closing, the teeth of the lower jaw enter between the two upper dentitions. In adults, the teeth are so worn out that the bite is made by the edges of the jaws, the covers of which are keratinized.
All life processes in the hatteria are slowed down, the metabolism is low. There is usually about 7 seconds between two breaths, but a tuatara can stay alive without taking a single breath for an hour!
Tuatara grows slowly and reaches sexual maturity by the age of 20. It is assumed that she belongs to the number of outstanding centenarians of the animal world. It is possible that the age of some males exceeds 100 years! Winter time - from mid-March to mid-August - tuatara spend in burrows, falling into hibernation. In spring, females dig special small burrows, where with the help of their paws and mouth they carry a clutch of 8–15 eggs, each of which is about 3 cm in diameter and is enclosed in a soft shell. From above, the masonry is covered with earth, grass, leaves or moss. The incubation period lasts about 15 months, much longer than other reptiles. The female tuatara is able to lay eggs once every 4 years. The male mates every year.
What else is this animal famous for? Tuatara is one of the few reptiles with a real voice. Her sad hoarse cries can be heard on foggy nights or when something bothers her.
Another amazing feature of the tuatara is its coexistence with gray petrels that nest on the islands in their own dug holes. Hatteria often settles in these holes, despite the presence of birds there, and sometimes, apparently, destroys their nests - judging by the finds of chicks with bitten heads. So such a neighborhood, apparently, does not bring joy to the petrels, although usually birds and reptiles coexist quite peacefully - the tuatara prefers other prey, which it goes in search of at night, and in the daytime the petrels fly into the sea for fish. When the birds migrate, the tuatara hibernates.
THE TOTAL NUMBER OF LIVING TUTTERS IS NOW ABOUT 100,000 INDIVIDUALS.
The largest colony is located on Stephens Island in the Cook Strait - there, on an area of 3 square meters. km lives 50,000 tuatars. On small islands less than 10 hectares in size, populations of tuatara do not exceed 5,000 individuals. The New Zealand government has long recognized the value of the amazing reptile for science, and there has been a strict conservation regime on the islands for about 100 years. You can visit them only with special permission. In addition, tuatara are successfully bred at the Sydney Zoo in Australia.
Tuatara are not eaten and their skins are not in commercial demand. They live on remote islands, where there are neither people nor predators, and are well adapted to the conditions existing there. And they can safely while away their days on secluded islands to the delight of biologists, in particular, trying to find out the reasons why the tuatara did not disappear in those distant times when all its relatives died out.
Perhaps we should learn from the people of New Zealand and how to protect their natural resources. As Gerald Durrell wrote, “Ask any New Zealander why they guard the tuatara. And they will consider your question simply inappropriate and say that, firstly, this is a one-of-a-kind creature, secondly, zoologists are not indifferent to it, and, in Thirdly, if it disappears, it will disappear forever.
Scientists and officials are working effectively together to protect these rare animals. Thanks to the state program of the New Zealand government for the protection of unique reptiles, their extinction has been stopped and the number of the species has begun to increase in recent years.
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Hatteria is a reptile that has three eyes. She lives in New Zealand. Scientists have found that they began their existence somewhere two hundred million years ago and did not succumb to changes during the entire time of their existence on the planet.
An interesting fact is that the tuatara could survive in such difficult living conditions the largest creatures on Earth - dinosaurs.
The discoverer of the tuatara is considered to be James Cook, who saw the tuatara during his travels in New Zealand. Looking at the hatteria for the first time, it may seem that this is an ordinary lizard. The length of the tuatara is 65-75 centimeters, taking into account the tail. The weight of the hatteria does not exceed 1 kilogram 300 grams.
On average, she lives 60 years, but sometimes the age reached 100 years. Readiness to enter into sexual intercourse appears in tuatara after reaching 15-20 years. Mating occurs at intervals of four years. Hatteria babies are born in almost 12-15 months. Due to such a long period of reproduction of their own kind, tuatara too quickly decrease in number.
Particular activity was observed at night. The tuatara has a superbly developed parietal eye. This part of the body has a connection with the emergence and function of the pineal gland. The reptile has an olive-green or greenish-gray color, and yellowish spots are visible on its sides. On the back is a crest, parts of which resemble triangles. That is why sometimes the reptile is called "prickly".
Hatteria cannot be attributed to lizards due to the structure of the head. Therefore, scientists in the XIX century. proposed to separate them into a separate detachment - beakheads. The thing is that reptiles have a peculiar structure of the skull. The uniqueness lies in the fact that in young tuataras the upper jaw, upwards of the skull and palate move in relation to the brain box. In scientific circles, this is called skull kinetics. That is why the upper part of the head of the tuatara tends to tilt down and change position to the opposite during the movements of the rest of the skull.
This skill was transferred to reptiles by lobe-finned fish, which are their ancient ancestors. It should be noted that kinetism is also inherent in some varieties of lizards and snakes. In addition, today the number of hatteria on the planet is sharply decreasing. In this regard, this type of reptile is subject to special control and protection.
»I know the world. Snakes, crocodiles, turtles Semenov Dmitry
Tuatara: living fossils
Tuatara, or tuatara, have been known for a long time. At first they were mistaken for lizards, but in 1867 a sensational scientific conclusion was made: despite the superficial similarity, tuatars are not lizards at all, but representatives of an ancient group of reptiles that have survived to this day, which was considered extinct along with dinosaurs 65 million years ago. There are so many unusual things in the internal structure of the tuatara that there is no doubt about their “non-lizard” origin.
Tuatara
It is especially interesting that for tens of millions of years the tuatara have changed little and their modern representatives hardly differ from their fossil ancestors. That is why tuatara are called "living fossils".
Recently it turned out that in reality there are two types of hatteria living on islands located close to each other off New Zealand. Relatively recently, these unique animals also inhabited the two large main islands of New Zealand, but quickly disappeared here when people mastered the islands.
On the deserted islands, where the tuatara are still preserved, the living conditions cannot be called easy. These islands have sparse flora and fauna, they are blown by all winds and are deprived of fresh water sources. Tuataras usually live in burrows dug by petrels, but sometimes they build their own dwellings. They feed on any small living creatures that they can get on the harsh islands.
The whole way of life of the hatteria is consistent with the name "living fossil". They are active at unusually low temperatures for reptiles, and everything in their life proceeds unusually slowly. They crawl slowly, the female lays eggs only about a year after mating, the incubation of eggs lasts another year, or even longer, the cubs become adults only by the age of 20 (that is, later than a person). Like lizards, they can shed their tails, but it takes a few years for them to grow a new one. In general, it seems that time is nothing for them. In this cool-slow state, tuatara can live up to 100 years.
Compared to lizards, tuatara are rather large animals, reaching a length of 60 cm and a body weight of 1.3 kg.
Currently, tuatara are carefully guarded, and their total number reaches 100 thousand individuals.
From the book Encyclopedic Dictionary (K) author Brockhaus F. A.
Fossil corals Fossil corals. - Representatives of the K. class are already known from very ancient Silurian deposits and are found in more or less significant numbers in the sediments of all systems up to the Quaternary, inclusive, and in places among marine sediments they form
From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (IP) of the author TSB From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (LI) of the author TSB From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (NOT) of the author TSB From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (PO) of the author TSB From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (RU) of the author TSB From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (UG) of the author TSB From the book All About Everything. Volume 4 the author Likum Arkady From the book Evolution author Jenkins Morton From the book 100 famous mysteries of nature author Syadro Vladimir VladimirovichWhere were the first fossils found? Over the past two to three billion years, many forms of plant and animal life inhabited the Earth, and then died out. We know this from studying fossils. Most of the fossils are the remains of plants
Stephens Island, lost in the Cook Strait that separates the North from the South Island in New Zealand, is a rather gloomy picture: rocky shores shrouded in fog, against which cold lead waves break, sparse vegetation. However, it is here - on a nondescript island with an area of only 3 km2, that almost all zoologists of the world dream of visiting, since this is one of the last refuges of the most unique animal on the planet - tuatara.
Outwardly, the hatteria (Sphenodon punctatus) is very similar to a lizard: greenish-gray scaly skin, short strong paws with claws, a long tail, a dorsal crest consisting of flat triangular scales. By the way, the local name of the hatteria - tuatara - comes from the Maori word for "prickly". It is possible that this may refer to its toothed crest.
And yet, with all the external similarities, the hatteria is not a lizard. Moreover, scientists did not immediately understand the significance of this unique reptile. In 1831, the famous zoologist Gray, having only the skull of this animal available, attributed it to the Agama family. And only in 1867, another researcher, Gunther, proved that the resemblance to lizards is purely external, but in terms of its internal structure it stands completely apart from all modern reptiles and deserves to be allocated to a special order Rhyncho-cephalia, which means "beak-headed" (from the Greek "rinhos" - beak and "kefalon" - head; an indication of the premaxilla bending down). And after a while it turned out that the tuatara is generally a living prehistoric monster, the last and only representative of a group of reptiles that lived in Asia, Africa, North America and even Europe. Tuatara somehow managed to exist for almost 200 million years, and without any significant evolutionary changes in the skeleton, and all its relatives died out in the early Jurassic period, in the era of dinosaurs.
Not so long ago, tuatara were found in abundance on the main islands of New Zealand - North and South, but, as excavations show, the Maori tribes who colonized the islands in the 14th century exterminated them almost completely. An important role was played by the dogs and rats brought to the island. True, some scientists believe that the hatteria nevertheless disappeared there due to changes in climatic and environmental conditions. Until 1870, it was still found on the North Island itself, but at the beginning of the 20th century it was already preserved on only 20 small islands, of which 3 are in the Cook Strait, and the remaining 17 are located off the northern coast of the North Island. The population of these reptiles on the islands (half of which are uninhabited) is about 100,000 individuals. The largest colony on Stephens Island, where 50,000 individuals live - an average of 480 tuatara per 1 ha. On islands with an area of less than 10 hectares - no more than 5,000.
Hatteria is a nocturnal animal, unlike many other reptiles, it is active at relatively low temperatures: + 6 ° - + 8 ° C. This is another of its many features. The tuatara moves slowly, while almost not raising its belly above the substrate. However, frightened, she rises on her limbs and can even run. It feeds on insects, spiders, earthworms and snails. He loves water, lies in it for a long time and can swim well. Winters in burrows from mid-March to mid-August. When shedding, the dead epidermis is shed in pieces. All life processes in the tuatara are slow, the metabolism is low, the act of breathing lasts seven seconds, by the way, it may not breathe at all for an hour.
Mating takes place in January - at the height of summer in the Southern Hemisphere. In the period from October to December, the female lays 8 - 15 eggs in a soft shell, the size of which does not exceed 3 cm. For clutches, she digs small holes, where she lays eggs with her paws and mouth and falls asleep with earth, grass, leaves or moss. The incubation period lasts about 15 months, much longer than other reptiles. Hatteria grows slowly and reaches puberty only by the age of 20. That is why it can be assumed that it belongs to the number of long-livers among animals. It is possible that some of them are over 100 years old.
Tuatara is one of the few reptiles with a real voice. Her sad, hoarse cries can be heard on foggy nights or when someone bothers her.
The New Zealand government has long realized the uniqueness of this animal, and therefore the islands have had a strict conservation regime for more than 100 years - visiting the islands inhabited by them is allowed only with a special pass, and violators are severely punished. In addition, every single pig, cat and dog was taken from the islands, and rodents were exterminated. They all caused great damage by eating tuatara eggs and their young.
Therefore, now these secluded islands with their bird colonies and saline vegetation represent an isolated refuge, where only this ancient animal can exist in the image of its ancestors. So now nothing threatens these animals, unique in many respects, and they can safely while away their days in the most comfortable conditions for them on specially protected islands.
A very interesting feature of the tuatara is its cohabitation with the gray petrel that nests on the islands, digging holes in which it usually settles with it. For most of the year, this neighborhood does not cause them any trouble, since the petrel hunts for fish in the daytime, and the tuatara leaves in search of prey at night.
When the petrels migrate, the tuatara hibernates. However, judging by the chicks found in holes with bitten heads, cohabitation is much more beneficial to the tuatara. But still, chicks are its occasional and rare prey.
Another amazing detail of the structure of the hatteria is the presence of a parietal, or third, eye that fits between two real eyes. Its function has not yet been elucidated. In a young tuatara that has just hatched from an egg, the parietal eye is clearly visible. It is a bare spot surrounded by scales that are arranged like flower petals. Over time, the "third eye" is overgrown with scales, and in adult tuatara it can no longer be seen. Researchers have repeatedly tried to find out if tuatare has any benefit from the parietal eye. Although this organ has a lens and a retina with nerve endings, suggesting that it is sensitive to light, the eye itself is devoid of muscles and has no adaptations for accommodation, or focusing. In addition, experiments have shown that the animal does not see with this eye, but it is sensitive to light and heat and helps to regulate body temperature, strictly dosing the time spent in the sun and in the shade.
Tuatara is the only modern reptile that does not have a copulatory organ. But even more important, at least from the point of view of paleontologists, she, like some ancient reptiles, has two complete bony arches in the temporal region of the skull. According to scientists, the skull of a modern lizard, open from the sides, comes from just such an ancient skull of a biarch type. Consequently, the tuatara retains the features of the ancestral forms of both lizards and snakes. But unlike them, it has not changed much over millions of years. In addition to the usual ribs, the tuatara also has a series of so-called abdominal ribs, which among modern reptiles are preserved only in crocodiles.
The teeth of the tuatara are wedge-shaped. They grow to the upper edge of the lower and lower edge of the upper jaws. The second row of teeth is located on the palatine bone. When closing, the teeth of the lower jaw enter between the two upper dentitions. In adults, the teeth are erased so much that the bite is already made by the very edges of the jaws, the covers of which are keratinized.
V.V. Bobrov, candidate of biological sciences | Photo by Mikhail Kachalin
Tuatara, the three-eyed reptile that survived the dinosaurs March 31st, 2017
The most ancient reptile that has survived from the time of the dinosaurs is the three-eyed lizard tuatara, or tuatara (lat. Sphenodon punctatus) - a species of reptiles from the beak-head order.
For an uninitiated person, the hatteria (Sphenodon punctatus) is simply a large, imposing lizard. Indeed, this animal has greenish-gray scaly skin, short strong paws with claws, a crest on the back, consisting of flat triangular scales, like agamas and iguanas (the local name for tuatara - tuatara - comes from the Maori word for "spiky ”), and a long tail.
You live tuatara in New Zealand. Now its representatives have become smaller than they were before.
According to the memoirs of James Cook, on the islands of New Zealand there were tuatars about three meters long and as thick as a person, which they ate from time to time.
Today, the largest specimens are just over a meter long. At the same time, the male tuatara, together with the tail, reaches a length of 65 cm and weighs about 1 kg, and females are much smaller than males in size and half as light.
Tuatar is distinguished as a separate species of reptile, standing apart from all modern reptiles.
Photo 3. 
Although in appearance the tuatara resemble large, impressive species of lizards, especially iguanas, this resemblance is only external and has nothing to do with tuatara lizards. In terms of internal structure, they have much more in common with snakes, turtles, crocodiles and fish, as well as extinct ichthyosaurs, megalosaurs and teleosaurs.
The features of its structure are so unusual that a special detachment was established for it in the class of reptiles - Rhynchocephalia, which means "beak-headed" (from the Greek "rynchos" - beak and "kephalon" - head; an indication of the premaxilla bending down).
A very interesting feature of the tuatara is the presence of a parietal (or third) eye, located on the crown of the head between two real eyes *. Its function has not yet been elucidated. This organ has a lens and a retina with nerve endings, but is devoid of muscles and any adaptations for accommodation, or focusing. In a tuatara cub that has just hatched from an egg, the parietal eye is clearly visible - like a naked speck surrounded by scales that are arranged like flower petals. Over time, the "third eye" is overgrown with scales, and in adult tuatara it can no longer be seen. As experiments have shown, the tuatara cannot see with this eye, but it is sensitive to light and heat, which helps the animal regulate body temperature, dosing the time spent in the sun and in the shade.
The tuatara's third eye has a lens and retina with nerve endings connected to the brain, but lacks muscles and any adaptations for accommodation, or focus.
Experiments have shown that the tuatara cannot see with this eye, but it is sensitive to light and heat, which helps the animal regulate body temperature, dosing the time spent in the sun and in the shade.
The third eye, but less developed, is also found in tailless amphibians (frogs), lampreys, and some lizards and fish.
Tuatara has a third eye only six months after birth, then it overgrows with scales and becomes almost invisible.
In 1831, the famous zoologist Gray, having only the skulls of this animal, gave it the name Sphenodon. After 11 years, a whole copy of the tuatara fell into his hands, which he described as another reptile, giving it the name Hatteria punctata and referring it to lizards from the agam family. It wasn't until 30 years later that Gray established that Sphenodon and Hatteria were one and the same. But even before that, in 1867, it was shown that the similarity of the hatteria with lizards is purely external, and in terms of the internal structure (primarily the structure of the skull), the tuatara stands completely apart from all modern reptiles.
And then it turned out that the tuatara, now living exclusively on the islands of New Zealand, is a “living fossil”, the last representative of the once common group of reptiles that lived in Asia, Africa, North America and even Europe. But all other beakheads died out in the early Jurassic, and the tuatara managed to exist for almost 200 million years. It is amazing how little its structure has changed over this vast period of time, while lizards and snakes have reached such a variety.
As excavations show, not so long ago, tuatara were found in abundance on the main islands of New Zealand - North and South. But the Maori tribes, who settled in these places in the XIV century, exterminated the Tuatars almost completely. An important role was played in this by the dogs and rats that came along with the people. True, some scientists believe that the hatteria died due to changes in climatic and environmental conditions. Until 1870, she was still found on the North Island, but at the beginning of the 20th century. has survived only on 20 small islands, of which 3 are in the Cook Strait, and the rest are off the northeast coast of the North Island.
The view of these islands is gloomy - cold leaden waves break on the rocky shores shrouded in mist. The already sparse vegetation was badly damaged by sheep, goats, pigs and other wild animals. Now, every single pig, cat, and dog has been removed from the islands where Tuatara populations have survived, and the rodents have been exterminated. All these animals caused great damage to tuatarams, eating their eggs and juveniles. Of the vertebrates on the islands, only reptiles and numerous sea birds remained, arranging their colonies here.
An adult male tuatara reaches a length (including tail) of 65 cm and weighs about 1 kg. Females are smaller and almost twice as light. These reptiles feed on insects, spiders, earthworms and snails. They love water, often lie in it for a long time and swim well. But the tuatara runs badly.
Hatteria is a nocturnal animal, and unlike many other reptiles, it is active at relatively low temperatures - + 6o ... + 8oC - this is another interesting feature of its biology. All life processes in the hatteria are slow, the metabolism is low. Between two breaths usually takes about 7 seconds, but the tuatara can remain alive without taking a single breath for an hour.
Winter time - from mid-March to mid-August - tuatara spend in burrows, falling into hibernation. In spring, females dig special small burrows, where with the help of their paws and mouth they carry a clutch of 8–15 eggs, each of which is about 3 cm in diameter and is enclosed in a soft shell. From above, the masonry is covered with earth, grass, leaves or moss. The incubation period lasts about 15 months, which is much longer than that of other reptiles.
Tuatara grows slowly and reaches puberty no earlier than 20 years. That is why we can assume that she belongs to the number of outstanding centenarians of the animal world. It is possible that the age of some males exceeds 100 years.
What else is this animal famous for? Tuatara is one of the few reptiles with a real voice. Her sad, hoarse cries can be heard on foggy nights or when someone bothers her.
Another amazing feature of the tuatara is its coexistence with gray petrels, which nest on the islands in self-dug holes. Hatteria often settles in these holes, despite the presence of birds there, and sometimes, apparently, destroys their nests - judging by the finds of chicks with bitten heads. So such a neighborhood, apparently, does not bring great joy to the petrels, although usually birds and reptiles coexist quite peacefully - the tuatara prefers other prey, which it goes in search of at night, and in the daytime the petrels fly into the sea for fish. When the birds migrate, the tuatara hibernates.
The total number of living tuatara is now about 100,000 individuals. The largest colony is located on Stephens Island in the Cook Strait - 50,000 tuatars live there on an area of 3 km2 - an average of 480 individuals per 1 ha. On small islands less than 10 hectares in size, populations of tuatara do not exceed 5,000 individuals. The New Zealand government has long recognized the value of the amazing reptile for science, and there has been a strict conservation regime on the islands for about 100 years. You can visit them only with special permission and strict liability is established for violators. In addition, tuatara are successfully bred at the Sydney Zoo in Australia.
Tuatara are not eaten and their skins are not in commercial demand. They live on remote islands, where there are neither people nor predators, and are well adapted to the conditions existing there. So, apparently, nothing threatens the survival of these unique reptiles at present. They can safely while away their days on secluded islands to the delight of biologists, who, among other things, are trying to figure out the reasons why the tuatara did not disappear in those distant times when all its relatives died out.
sourcesNiramin - Jun 20th, 2016
In the Cook Strait, which separates the North and South Islands of New Zealand, the oldest creature lives - a unique three-eyed reptile tuatara or tuatara (lat. Sphenodon punctatus). This "living fossil", whose representatives existed on Earth about 200 million years ago, can be found exclusively on the territory of the rocky islands of the strait. Therefore, the unique reptile is strictly guarded, and those wishing to see the tuatara in its natural environment must obtain a special pass, otherwise violators will face severe punishment up to imprisonment.
The tuatara looks like an ordinary lizard and is in many ways similar to the iguana. Its olive green body, reaching a length of about 70 cm, is decorated with yellow spots of various sizes, which are located on its limbs and sides. On the back, a small ridge stretches along the spine, because of which the locals call the reptile tuatara, which sounds like “prickly” in translation. Despite the resemblance to lizards, the hatteria belongs to a special order of beakheads. This is due to the fact that reptiles at a young age have movable skull bones. Therefore, the front end of the upper jaw, while moving the head, goes down and bends back, resembling a beak. In addition, young individuals on the back of the head have a special light-sensitive organ - the third eye. This amazing reptile has a slow metabolism. Therefore, it grows very slowly and reaches puberty only by 15-20 years. Hatteria belongs to centenarians and lives for about 100 years.
The reptile feeds mainly on various insects, worms, spiders and snails, and during the breeding season, the tuatara does not disdain the meat of gray petrel chicks, in whose nests it often settles for living together.
Due to the uniqueness of the hatteria, a special regime has been introduced on all the islands where it is found. There are no dogs, cats, pigs and rodents. They were taken out of here so that they would not eat eggs and young individuals.
Photo: Hatteria. 
Video: Living fossil - The amazing Tuatara reptile
Video: Tuatara
