THE TUATARA.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17815, 14 July 1923, Page 17

THE TUATARA.

REMARKABLE ANCESTRY. STBANGE STRUCTURE AND RELATIONSHIP. «.r-tralia does not hold a monopoly ■ ''Tiring foMil*." Although she is to' have tbe pearly Trigonia '• r i" : . relic of Jurassic times, a3 well little marsupial Anteater (Myrreminiscent of the English marsupials of an age long past, ItfkrJ/if r<frrSiP. tbe Tuatara or Sphen!Lj" d<"-lares F. Chapman, A.L.S., to the National Museum, fclbaW-, m an article in the "Argus. ' J5, been added to the Melbourne Zoo. though called a befiked lizard, a croco'2e fflJS"' c<iUal cla ' m t!le titio .f'liwrd, for it - : s so peculiar in its I nature' that it has been placed in a '--grate order, wi.icb includes many V-ri representatives. Without desir- .,' to ofler.d this interesting little • tB a ioneiy scion of a once noble jjjj-Iv. whew? ancestry runs back not utre hr to a thousand years or so, but ..' s "moderate estimate to, perhaps 'sOOOOOO. Although one of the most ffiire oi reptik-.s it is generally £\, de j by naturalists representing '■'ST zvcebtr.il :-tock troin which tho ffejer rcptii<'?-. ""d later, tho mammals. MT&rived. -o that itt> blood is very I jM*. iodeed. •-,«•• tbe Tuatara, to give it the Maori «jb» is now found oniv on some small yug&s &S the north-east coast of New ELd. It is crtain, however that time Ii i/iliabiwd the mainland.. trus bones huvo b,-oii found m the 2&ens along with tl-.osc ot tho Moa Sh Dinomiv, and Noiornis. Sinoa it Se of the most interesting of living ■JJb on the i.vo of the globe, it is •Sftctorv to learn that the- New ZeaJaTGovernment has placed it under Sal preieclion. hi fact, had it not Sinsmediateiy protected, the inroads rfdriltsation in tho iorm of bush fires, L& acd cats, aud even tho Maoris, rfTsre fond of it for food, the tuatara -«!ld hate speedily gone the way of tho n3» ud Leedbeater's parrot. linas »b it doeii in a burrow, this -aild t«nd to protect it to some axtaj but even that does not ensure of petreLs though other jijjns are not allowed entry. It is gtf th»t tho tuatara lives on the light B« of the burrow, and tho petrel on tjTleft. When this agreement was fan up no one can say. The eggs Afttre laid by the tuatara are liatchThe incubation occupies tinxi of 13 months, so that during !srt of the time this process mu3t be by cold. Tuataras are rather U, jn their movements, and slowly Sifeemserres along tbe ground unless gated about their food, which they bB onlv Mi© alive, in the shape of jsjjl animals. I The tuatara, or, scientifically, the, abajodon punctatus (Ht. spotted I S-tcoth), belongs to the order rhyn- j &«»phalia, a dominant group of rep- i 3ei n Penruen, Triassic. and Jurassic ia»; but *Us, is now the solitary ressiemg spedes. They are_ lizard-like rS*. Wd in some pomta have on the rite, seen both in lizards md fed*' uncinate appendages n 7Wr, found in tne fossil tbe lower jaws connected by yfcjW and the vertebral bones both back and front. SlMtflJuu a « n 6 le row of teeth ' yt&Sbt a fissure from the row on Z*ia> of the upper jaw. The teeth ' ilio tower jaw fit in this groove ■l'm ft« not, as is usual with teeth imtateA in sockets, but firmly welded > the edge of the jaw. The front ot io js* is beak-like, hence tha name, ad tbe premaxilla carries a pair of asekhaped teeth. On the top of the rSI is a vacuity, the parietal foramen, id l»aeath is a functionlcss eye or biefal gland. This rudimentary eye teen through the skin in tho young afera, but the skin thickens over as ■'Vpin older. "flat is known as the pineal body is Attxtare seen in fishes and reptiles, ii proceM of the brain that perforthe roof of tho skull. In sharks >*»& below the skin in a closed £&. Yonnj; frogs show it above the *&W of the skuJ.l, but it undergoes iin life. De Graf first v as an eye-like organ r-worm (Anguis), and er confirmed it in the endon, as having dieretina. Some autliopineal body as a prirepresenting an upre. like the conning rine. Others, howhe eye-like structure edification. Professor Swinnerton, who also Sphenodon in regard Mind that the vertegh a paired cartilain its later details hoso of tho lower p of the frogs and the "beaked lizards" stock which also gave id toads of the earlier bv the embyrological ies made on both the lon. On looking over ist, away back for at Jars, in tho Carboniind the earliest backlich exhibit fingered -3 great amphibians tolcj. l>-- as Stegoceitcueti cianiums were t strong bone, appar- * hard knocks, very probably within the sars, in the Permian, ip of digitated, backhich, being more or ?laced with the repgroup to which our, Wongs, comprised in ocephalia, or "beakelates of Germany ain magnesian limen England, are found irliest "beak-heads." us had a body about ther curious" animal CToun is the Hypero--5 from some slightly Ugin, in Scotland, by It had a short, ilar head, and the j tlatines wero furnish- • ms of flattened conisth Hke enamelled , igle row on tho lower | blv indicates that it : iinon thellfisli. The ho living Sphenodon Jveral interesting anno large and others oi tho beaked-lizard >t*dlv Homoeosaurus, like Sphenodon, but and iu some species iut Bin in length. It from the living form 'iook-like or uncinate ibs. This little creaen verv common near Jurassic times, when deposit was forming of Europe, and which ot of next column-*

now is the remarkable lithographic stone. Into the muaoank of tius Jurites.o 'shoi-e-me were wasned all kinds of flotsam, such as uragou-uies ana suiaU animal from the land as well as cuttlefishes and other marine objects from the lixcellent easts of fossil beaked lizards from the South Airicau Karoo and the Oolite of France and Bavaria are to be aeen in the wall-cases of the gallery of ♦ossils in the National Museum. The niost remarkable tiling about this group of the Rhynchooephalians is that no remains have been found in any formation between the Jurassic and the «übrccent, so that wo can almost say that ■sro possess a living "beaked lizard" "through the intervention of Providence."