546 



COLLEGE ZOOLOGY 



feeding on fish, frogs, young water-fowl, and mollusks. When 

 attacked they are very vicious. The shell as well as other 

 parts of the animals are used as food and are regularly sold 

 in the markets. 



Order 2. Rhynchocephalia. — There is only a single living 

 representative of this order — Sphenodon pundatum (Fig. 450). 

 This reptile, which formerly inhabited all of the main islands of 

 New Zealand, is now restricted to some small islets in the Bay 



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Fig. 450. — Sphenodon pundatum. (From Gadow.) 



of Plent , and will probably soon be entirely exterminated. It 

 Is about two feet long and resembles a lizard in form. It lives 

 in burrows, is nocturnal, and feeds on other live animals. 



One of its most striking peculiarities is the presence of a well- 

 developed parietal organ or pineal eye in the roof of the cranium, 

 which has all the characters of a simple eye. It is also the only 

 reptile without a copulatory organ. Numerous skeletal char- 

 acteristics are like those possessed by some of the oldest fossil 

 reptiles, and the ancestors of living reptiles were apparently 

 much like this queer relic of past ages. 



