Steven J. DeBellis, age 12, of St. Louis, Missouri, for his question:
What is a tuatara?
After a full day at the zoo, you may think you have been introduced to every fair sized animal on this planet. Not at all. Chances are, you missed a captive tuatara from the Anti¬podes. You would remember him as a 30 inch dragon type fellow. You might suspect that he is rather an unusual lizard.
The tuatara is called a living fossil because he is the sole survivor of a long gone group of animals. His ancestors thrived in large numbers and vast varieties before the dinosaurs reached their monstrous peak. They were beak head reptiles of the Triassic Period that opened about 200 million years ago. Fossil remains found in many lands show that many beak heads grew five or six feet in length. They were, of course, midgets beside the bulky dinosaurs of the Mesozoic Era. This may explain why the beak heads began to decline. Scien¬tists assumed that the last of them departed with the dinosaurs at the end of the Mesoz6ic Era, about 65 million years ago.
One species, however, survived and thrived securely into modern times. He found a home in New Zealand and on several nearby islands where none of the big, meat eating animals ever encroached. His days of secret seclusion ended soon after settlers from Europe arrived to make their homes in far off Australia and New Zealand. They were astonished by the outlandish kangaroo, the wallaby and an assortment of other unheard of marsupials of Australia. Perhaps they were less surprised by the New Zealand tuatara. He looked like a dog house sized dragon and he seemed to be a lizard.
When the experts found him, they were astonished. No, certainly he could not be classed as a small dragon. But neither was he a true lizard. He had the expandable lower jaw of a snake and certain features of the extinct beak head reptiles. The sole survivor was given an order of his own and an animal family for himself alone. The New Zealand Maoris had named him Tuatara, meaning spiny back. Zoologists decided to keep this name for him. The living fossil is classified in the Tuatara Order and the Tuatara family. His name is pronounced too a tar ra.
A sizable tuatara grows 2 1/2 to 3 feet long. His lizard type body is brownish olive and speckled with small yellow spots on each of his bumpy scales. From his neck to the tip of his tail, he has a crested row of spike shaped scales. This, of course, accounts for his spiny back name. The tuatara's most amazing feature is the dwindling remains of a third eye, right in the middle of his forehead. A three eyed, lizard type animal, you would think, just has to be a dragon. But experts are positive that he is neither a dragon nor a lizard.
The tuatara is a harmless fellow, inclined to be friendly. Dogs and other meat eaters that carne with the settlers soon ended his days in New Zealand. Fortunately laws were passed to protect him before he was totally exterminated. He now lives securely on several nearly isles and islands. He shares his small world with flocks of nesting mutton birds and makes himself comfortable in their burrows. All possible enemies are banned from his refuges. Even the birds and the trees he enjoys are protected by law.