THE TUATARA 
(Sole Living Member of the Order Rhynchocephalia) 
The tuatara is a “ghost out of the past,” as out of place among living 
reptiles as a Neanderthal man would be on Times Square. 
These lizard-like creatures are the sole survivors of the large order 
of rhynchocephalians which died out in the Triassic age. They still linger 
on only in a few small New Zealand islets which are the protruding peaks 
of submerged mountains. Tuataras are sometimes described as “living fos¬ 
sils,” since all other species of their order are known only by fossilized 
remains many thousands of years old. 
The tuatara burrows its home in the sandy and pebbly soil. Entered 
by a passageway of several feet, the apartment has two rooms lined with 
leaves and grass. But the tuatara tenants only one; the other is invariably 
occupied by a family of petrels, a species of sea bird — and the animal 
neighbors seem to live together much more amicably than do neighbors 
in a city tenement. 
Resting during the day in the dark shelter of this retreat, the tuatara 
ventures forth at night in search of food. The belly and tail of its slow- 
moving form scrape the ground as it drags along on four feet, the front 
two of which strikingly resemble a fat baby’s hands. When it sights a 
beetle, grasshopper, spider or worm, it raises its scaly belly and tail from 
the ground, darts forward and makes short shrift of its prey. 
The tuatara has a difficult time escaping from trouble. Sluggish, it 
runs very slowly and habitually pauses to crane its neck backward to peer 
at the pursuing enemy. Perhaps this characteristic accounts in part for 
the systematic depletion which has made it a rare reptile. 
Before scientists discovered that it was a unique relic of earlier epochs, 
the tuatara was well on the road to extinction. Some were killed off by 
man-made bush fires. Pigs and other animals put ashore by such early 
explorers as Captain Cook dined upon the peace-loving creature, as did 
some of the reptile-eating Maoris. Another factor which helped to eliminate 
the species from New Zealand is that the sheep ate the grass that sustained 
the insects which provided the tuatara’s food. Despite the government’s 
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