TUATARA, tMl-tiVril (Alaori, spiny). A reptile of New Zealand (Sphenodon or liattcria, punctatum), which looks like a large stout lizard, but whose structure shows it to be the sole sur viving representative of a primitive group, the Rhynchocephali, otherwise extinct in the Triassic age. Large males reach a length of 21/2 feet, are dark olive green, and have a row of short yellowish, horn-sheathed spines along the verte bral line. The skin is rather granular, except on the belly, where it is scaly. All its anatomy distinguishes this animal from lizards and allies it with the ancient Prosauria—the carpus, for example, has the primitive number of 10 bones, all separate; and there is an entire absence of external copulatory organs.
The tuataras were once numerous through New Zealand, but have been killed off by civilization and bush-fires, until now they inhabit only some small parts of the North Island. They dwell in burrows of their own digging, which they share with sundry petrels. They are fond of water,
and are able to remain submerged for hours without breathing. During the day they sleep, but at night hunt for food, which consists of in sects and worms in the interior and on the coast of small fishes, crustaceans, etc.: all food is taken alive. They move very slowly and lazily, hut are fierce fighters when called upon to de fend themselves. They lay in summer about ten eggs, elongated and hard-shelled, which are buried in warm sand and left to hatch, but this does not happen until about thirteen months later. al though the embryos grow to nearly their full size in half that time o• less, and then seem to :esti vate. Consult: (4adow, A mphibia and Reptiles (London, 1901) ; Newman, Transactions Zoiilogi• cal Society, vol. xv. (ib., 1S97) ; Howes. Trans actions New Zealand Institute, vol. x. (Welling ton, 1878) ; Van Haast, id., vol. xiv. (1881).