THE TUATARA

Hokitika Guardian, 3 October 1931, Page 2

THE TUATARA

A FAMOUS REPTILE. |

MANY INTERESTING CHARACTERS.

(Br J. DRUMMOND, F.L.S., F.Z.S. in Christchurch “Times.”) The disco very .-of two tuataras on'the J hills near Sumner may show that these very interesting reptiles have not been completely banished to a few islands oft the New Zealand coast, Shy, solitary, and retiring, they may j be present in secluded places without ( making their presence known. In earthworms, insects, crusaceans, j

snails and slugs they find ample food supplies. As for a home, a burrow in the soil, with a chamber at the end, is all they need. Thve usually make their own homes, throwing behind them the earth they rake ' out with their claws. Sometimes they avoid this work by taking possession of a ready-made dwelling. In islands in the Hay of Plenty, a. tuatara and a petrel have been found in the petrel’s burrow. PINEAL EYE WELL DEVELOPED. A female tuatara lays from eight to ten eggs at a time, covering ;tln*m with earth or sand. The she.l of each egg i s flexible, tough and elastic. Eleven months are occupied in hatching. New ly-laid eggs, broadly oval, somewhat more (than an inch long, are ilnusi completely fi.led with yellow volk When the time for hatching approaches. they swell. A high state of .tension

is reached, so high that a small incision in the shell is sufficient to cause it to split with almost explosive violence In later .stages of development- in the egg: a patch of horny skin on the young tuatara’s snout fornis a. sharp cutting instrument, which may he used tor making the incision that releases the young from its prison.

The tuatara’s most interesting feature zoologically i s a small third eye hidden under the skin on the top of hi.s head. It is the pariental or pineal eye. Descartes believed that it) the pineal g'and in man itlie mind met the vital spirit, and that the gland held the mystery of creation. The pineal eye has a, higher structure in the tuatara than in any other creature known. It appears in a very young tuatara first as a small knob on the roof of ;he fore-brain, between the ordinary paired eyes. It has a. conspicuous nerve, and its lens are

sharply marked. Tn n tuatara newly hatched, the eye may !••<• recognised as a dark spot through thin, semi-tr.ms-pnrent skin over the opening to the gland. Thick, opaque skin covers the eye in the adult, and il cannot then be recognised externally but there it is. high y specialised. At one stage in the t-natara’s development the third eye has a remarkably close resemblance to the ordinary paired eyes of all vone hrates. There seems to be little doubt that it ‘was of use to ;.he tuatara’s incedars, who. with it. looked sky ware as they crawled along, or. like , he tun tarn, stood still, best in thought. .SURVIVAL OK ANCIENT ORDER. Men of seduce el’ the world over are interested in ,'this primitive reptile on

account of its ancient lineage. Its nearest relative known was entombed in .Jurassic rocks at Como Bluff, Wyoming, I’nited States, some 150,000,000 years ago. In the Permian Per iod, perhaps 65,000,000 years earlier, it wag ,n presented by reptiles fron whom it differs in some respects, but not so much as.,to exclude it from their great order, the Bliyncho-Ceplial-inns, that is, the Snout-heads, of whiel ; l i s the only surviving member. Knr those reasons this New Zealand er i s valued highly, and deserves al the protection the law gives it.