TUATARA ARRIVES FOR LONDON ZOO

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 222, 8 December 1927, Page 1

TUATARA ARRIVES FOR LONDON ZOO

GIFT FROM DOMINION (Mpecial to TUB SUN.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. A gift from the New Zealand Government Has reached the London Zoological Gardens and is considered to be one of the rarest •nd most interesting reptiles to be *«en there. it is a Sphenodon, or, in its better«*own Maori name, Tuatara (.spiny Backed), and it came from one of the uninhabited islands of the Bay 01 Plenty, where the last surviving remnants of an interesting species are °elng carefully preserved. Two of the reptiles were sent to London, but one aied on the way. Although extremely lizard-like in the sphenodon, or “living lossil” as it has been described. Is far|ner removed in relationship than nzards ai'e from snakes, and It holds unique position of being the only • Iv mg representative of an order of re which has long become extinct. The specimen at the zoo is nearly two feet long and is black. To most People it would look like an ordinary •izard with a row of spines down the centre of its back. It is, however, in fne structure of its bony skeleton and internal parts that the sphenodon uifters from the lizard, and it is also Peculiar In having the third eye more Perfectly developed than any other | lv ng thing. The young sphenodon has this pineal eye on the top of the head between the two bones forming the Blde s of the skull and it can be seen as * dark speck through the translucent Later, this eye becomes less a PParent, but it remains throughout Ufe of the reptile. , The sphenodon lives in burrows and * eed s on small insects, fish and worms, h is fond of lying in water and it can submerged for many hours without breathing.