Tuatara

The tuatara is a lizard-like reptile found only in New Zealand. It looks like a lizard, but it is the only living member of a different ancient group called Rhynchocephalia, which was common in the age of the dinosaurs. It is greenish brown and grey with a spiny crest down its back, especially in males, and grows up to about 80 centimetres from head to tail, weighing up to 1.3 kilograms.

Its Maori name means peaks on the back. It has a second row of upper teeth on the roof of its mouth and no outer ear, though it can still hear. People often call it a living fossil, but scientists now avoid that phrase. It has been protected by law since 1895 and today lives wild only on offshore islands.

An ancient family

Rhynchocephalians first appear in fossils about 244 to 241 million years ago and were the dominant small reptiles in the Jurassic. Outside New Zealand the youngest fossils are from the Paleocene. Their closest living relatives are lizards and snakes. Tuatara can lose the tip of the tail when threatened, just as lizards can.

Saving the tuatara

Rats and loss of habitat wiped out tuatara on the main islands, leaving populations on 32 offshore islands. In 2005 tuatara were released into the fenced Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, now called Zealandia, on the North Island. A nest found in 2008 and a hatchling the following autumn were the first sign of tuatara breeding there in the wild in over 200 years.

On the globe

On the toy globe the tuatara lives on islands off New Zealand. Look for the spiny crest along its back.