CHAPTER XIII 

 RHYNCHOCEPHALIA 



In some of the small islands near the northeast coast of New 

 Zealand certain small and peculiar, lizard-like reptiles, known as 

 tuateras, have long been known. For many years they were sup- 

 posed, even by scientific men, to be real lizards, so much do they 

 resemble in external appearances and in habits the lizards of other 

 parts of the earth. It was early observed, however, that they 

 presented certain remarkable internal differences from the real 

 lizards or Lacertilia, though it was not till about twenty-five years 

 ago that the importance of these differences was recognized by the 

 late Professor Cope, who separated them into a distinct order quite 

 co-ordinate with the lizards, crocodiles, and turtles. These little 

 reptiles, seldom reaching a length of two feet, have now become so 

 scarce that the New Zealand government protects them by law 

 from unnecessary destruction; nevertheless it will probably be 

 only a short time before they become extinct, the end of a long 

 genealogical line. No other living reptiles have retained more of 

 the old-fashioned or primitive characters than this Sphenodon or 

 Hatteria, as the animal is called, and because of them it is of peculiar 

 interest to zoologists, and especially paleontologists. 



The differences of these beaked lizards from the true lizards 

 are especially noticeable in the skull, and more especially in the 

 arrangement of the bones which give articulation to the lower 

 jaws (Fig. 8). In the lizards and snakes the quadrate bone is 

 loosely articulated at its upper end with the cranium, and has no 

 inferior bar or arch connecting its lower end with the jugal and the 

 back part of the upper jaw. Sphenodon, on the contrary, has the 

 quadrate bone firmly fixed to its adjacent bones at both ends, and 

 is quite immovable. The vertebrae are biconcave like those of all 

 early reptiles, not concavo-convex as are the vertebrae of most 

 other living reptiles. The intercentra or hypocentra, little wedge- 

 shaped bones between the centra below, are more persistent in 



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