Tutteria lizards are considered the most ancient or largest. Hatteria

If you think that tuatara or tuatara (lat. Sphenodon punctatus) is just another one of the lizards, you are deeply mistaken! In fact, it is so unusual that a separate order was created for it back in the 19th century - beak-headed (lat. Phynchocephalia).

From large lizards The tuatara is distinguished primarily by the structure of its unusual skull. The upper jaw, palate and roof of the skull of young tuataria are mobile in relation to the braincase. Those. at complex movements the anterior tip of the upper jaw is bent down and slightly retracted.

In addition, tuataras boast the presence of a third (parietal) eye located in the back of the head. Just don't try to find it in photographs of adults! The fact is that this amazing organ is clearly visible only in newborn babies. It is a bare speck, surrounded on all sides by scales. The third eye is equipped with a lens and light-sensitive cells, but the organ does not have muscles that could help focus its position. With age, the eye becomes covered with skin.

Its exact purpose, unfortunately, is still not known. It is assumed that it is needed to determine the level of light and ambient air temperature so that the tuatara can control its exposure to the sun. She, like all reptiles, loves to bask on warm rocks.

The tuateria lives on the small islands of New Zealand. Previously, these unusual reptiles were found on the two main islands - North and South. However, they were destroyed by the Maori tribes who settled here in the 16th century. Today, tuataras are protected as an endangered species. For their sake, all feral dogs, cats and pigs were evicted from the islands, and rodents were also destroyed. You can get to these islands only with special permission. Violators will face no less than imprisonment. This is how they take care of this strange reptile!

Such concern is not surprising, considering that the tuateria is oldest species, which managed to maintain its original appearance since its appearance on our planet. And this happened about 200 million years ago. A real living fossil!

The male's body length including tail can reach 65 cm and weighs about 1 kg. The body length of females is somewhat shorter, and their weight is almost half that. A small ridge runs along the back, which consists of triangular plates. It was he who gave the name to the species: “tuatara” means “spiny”.

Hatterias settle directly in the nests of gray petrels. During the day they hide here from predators while the birds fly around in search of food, and at night they themselves go after prey, giving way to the owners of the nest. They do not pay very well for “hospitality”: during the breeding season of birds, tuatara sometimes eat their chicks. Although much more often they feed on insects, snails and spiders.

Hatterias live for about 100 years. Their metabolism is so slow and their life processes are so slow that they take a very long time to develop. For example, pregnancy in females lasts from 8 to 10 months, and the incubation period of laid eggs lasts as long as 15 months. Tuatara reach sexual maturity only at 15 or even 20 years of age. In general, they are in no hurry. Maybe this is the secret of longevity?

This is the only modern representative of the order of beak-headed reptiles. Outwardly similar to a lizard. Along the back and tail there is a ridge of triangular scales. Lives in burrows up to 1 m deep. Before the arrival of Maori and Europeans, it inhabited the Northern and South Islands New Zealand, but end of the 19th century centuries was exterminated there; preserved only on nearby islands in a special reserve. It is included in the Red Book of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and natural resources(IUCN). Successfully bred at Sydney Zoo.

Animals similar to hatteria - homeosaurs - lived 140 million years ago in that part of our planet that today has become Europe.

From the famous English navigator James Cook, Europeans learned that in New Zealand there was a “gigantic lizard up to two and a half meters long and as thick as a person.” She supposedly “sometimes even attacks people and devours them.” It must be said that Cook's story contains some exaggerations. The length of the tuateria along with the tail (male) is at most 75 cm (weight about a kilogram), and the tuateria does not hunt humans, but is content with more modest prey - insects, earthworms, and sometimes lizards.

Europeans who arrived in Cook's footsteps in New Zealand, almost put an end to the history of beaked heads, which dates back over 200 million years. More precisely, not they themselves, but rats, pigs and dogs who arrived along with people. These animals exterminated the young hatteria and ate its eggs. As a result, the hatteria almost disappeared. Now the hatteria is under strict protection: anyone who catches or kills this animal risks going to prison. Few zoos in the world can boast of tuataria in their collections. The famous English naturalist Gerald Durrell managed to obtain offspring of the tuataria in his zoo, which were given to him by the New Zealand government. Thanks to environmental measures, by the end of the 70s. In the 20th century, the number of tuateria increased slightly and reached 14 thousand specimens, which brought these animals out of danger of extinction.

To the uninitiated, the hatteria (Sphenodon punctatus) is simply a large, impressive-looking lizard. Indeed, this animal has greenish-gray scaly skin, short strong paws with claws, a crest on its back consisting of flat triangular scales, like agamas and iguanas (the local name for tuatara is derived from the Maori word meaning “spiny "), and a long tail.

However, the hatteria is not a lizard at all. The peculiarities of its structure are so unusual that a special order was created for it in the class of reptiles - Rhynchocephalia, which means “beak-headed” (from the Greek “rynchos” - beak and “kephalon” - head; an indication of the premaxillary bone curving down).

True, this did not happen immediately. In 1831, the famous zoologist Gray, having only the skulls of this animal, gave it the name Sphenodon. After 11 years, a whole specimen of the tuatara fell into his hands, which he described as another reptile, giving it the name Hatteria punctata and classifying it as a lizard from the agamas family. Only 30 years later did Gray establish that Sphenodon and Hatteria are one and the same. But even before this, in 1867, it was shown that the resemblance between tuateria and lizards is purely external, but internal structure(primarily the structure of the skull) The Tuatara stands completely apart from all modern reptiles.

And then it turned out that the hatteria, which now lives exclusively on the islands of New Zealand, is a “living fossil”, the last representative of a once widespread group of reptiles that lived in Asia, Africa, North America and even in Europe. But all other beaked heads became extinct in the early Jurassic period, and tuateria managed to exist for almost 200 million years. It is surprising how little its structure has changed over this huge period of time, while lizards and snakes have achieved such diversity.

A very interesting feature of the tuateria is the presence of a parietal (or third) eye, located on the crown between the two real eyes. Its function has not yet been clarified. This organ has a lens and a retina with nerve endings, but is devoid of muscles and any devices for accommodation or focusing. In a baby tuatara that has just hatched from an egg, the parietal eye is clearly visible - like a bare spot surrounded by scales that are arranged like flower petals. Over time, the “third eye” becomes overgrown with scales, and in adult tuatara it can no longer be seen. As experiments have shown, the hatteria cannot see with this eye, but it is sensitive to light and heat, which helps the animal regulate its body temperature, dosing the time it spends in the sun and in the shade.

However, similar education in the upper part of the brain is found in all vertebrates, only it is hidden under the skull.

As excavations show, not so long ago tuataria were found in abundance on the main islands of New Zealand - North and South. But the Maori tribes who settled in these places in the 14th century significantly reduced the number of tuatara. An important role in this was played by animals that arrived along with people that were not typical of the fauna of New Zealand. True, some scientists believe that tuateria died due to changes climatic conditions. Until 1870, it was still found on the North Island, but at the beginning of the 20th century it was preserved only on 20 small islands, of which 3 are in Cook Strait, and the rest are off the north-eastern coast of the North Island.

The appearance of these islands is gloomy - cold leaden waves crash on the rocky shores shrouded in fog. The already sparse vegetation suffered greatly from sheep, goats, pigs and other wild animals. Now, every single pig, cat and dog has been removed from the islands on which tuateria populations have remained, and the rodents have been destroyed. All these animals caused great damage to the tuatara by eating their eggs and young. Of the vertebrate animals on the islands, only reptiles and numerous seabirds, establishing their colonies here.

Female tuataria are smaller and almost half the weight of males. These reptiles feed on insects, spiders, earthworms and snails. They love water, often lie in it for a long time and swim well. But the tuatara runs poorly.

Hatteria is a nocturnal animal, and, unlike many other reptiles, it is active when relatively low temperatures- +6°...+8 °C - this is another interesting features her biology. All vital processes in tuateria are slow, metabolism is low. There is usually about 7 seconds between two breaths, but a tuatara can remain alive without taking another breath for an hour.

In winter - from mid-March to mid-August - tuataria spend in burrows, hibernating. In the spring, females dig special small burrows into which, using their paws and mouth, they transfer a clutch of 8-15 eggs, each of which is about 3 cm in diameter and enclosed in a soft shell. The top of the masonry is covered with earth, grass, leaves or moss. The incubation period lasts about 15 months, that is, much longer than that of other reptiles.

The tuatara grows slowly and reaches sexual maturity no earlier than 20 years. That is why we can assume that she is one of the outstanding long-livers of the animal world. It is possible that some males are over 100 years old.

What else is this animal famous for? Hatteria is one of the few reptiles with a real voice. Her sad, hoarse cries can be heard on foggy nights or when someone is bothering her.

One more amazing feature Tuatara live together with gray petrels, which nest on the islands in self-dug burrows. Hatteria often settles in these holes, despite the presence of birds there, and sometimes, apparently, destroys their nests - judging by the finds of chicks with their heads bitten off. So such a neighborhood, apparently, does not give the petrels much joy, although usually birds and reptiles coexist quite peacefully - the hatteria prefers other prey, which it goes in search of at night, and in the daytime the petrels fly to the sea for fish. When the birds migrate, the hatteria hibernates.

The total number of living tuataria is now about 100,000 individuals. The largest colony is located on Stephens Island in Cook Strait - there, on an area of 3 square meters. There are 50,000 tuatara living in km - an average of 480 individuals per 1 hectare. On small islands with an area of less than 10 hectares, the population of tuateria does not exceed 5,000 individuals. The New Zealand government has long recognized the value of this amazing reptile for science, and there has been a strict conservation regime on the islands for about 100 years. You can visit them only with special permission, and strict liability is established for violators.

Hatterias are not eaten, and their skins have no commercial demand. They live on remote islands, where there are no people or predators, and are well adapted to the conditions existing there. So, apparently, nothing threatens the survival of these unique reptiles at present. They can easily while away their days on secluded islands, to the delight of biologists who, among other things, are trying to find out the reasons why the hatteria did not disappear in those distant times when all its relatives became extinct.

Who is called " prehistoric monster" or Hatteria (lat. Sphenodon punctatus) - one of a kind.

The Permian cotylosaurs gave rise to a group of reptiles in which the evolution of the skull followed the path of reduction (simplification of the structure, in this case, lightening the weight of the skull due to the formation of the temporal pits).

This is how the group of diapsids arose, which includes two subclasses - lepidosaurs and archosaurs. Among the modern reptiles, the lepidosaurs include a large number of squamates and the only representative of the ancient branch of reptiles - the hatteria. It represents at once a species, a genus, and a family, as well as a series of beak-headed or proboscis-headed animals.

The tuatara or tuatara is a rare animal with a very scientifically interesting body structure. It has so many qualities of primitive organization, common with reptiles that lived in the Permian period and early Triassic, that it is called a living fossil. Externally, tuateria is similar to big lizard. The length of her body reaches 75 cm. On the back of her head, as well as along her back and tail, she has a crest consisting of sharp plates - spines. Hence its second name – tuatara. In the Maori language, the indigenous people of New Zealand, this means “one who bears thorns.”

The body of the tuateria is massive, the five-fingered limbs are horizontal, the tail is long and triangular. The head is quite large, on its sides there are big eyes with vertical pupils. The body is covered with scales of varying sizes, and on the ventral side there are quadrangular scutes. The color is olive green with small white and large yellow spots. The color of the crest on the back is light yellow, and on the tail it is brown. For your 165 million. Over the years, the tuateria has hardly changed.

According to their lifestyle, they are nocturnal animals; only in the evening do they emerge from their burrows to bask in the sun. They forage for food at night. They feed mainly on insects, mollusks and worms, and if the opportunity arises, on lizards and small birds. Amazing property heterium is their ability to remain active at fairly low temperatures (6-18 ° C). Therefore, their winter sleep is not sound, and sunny days they wake up and even come out of their holes.

Hatterias begin to reproduce only at the age of 20. Gaterias mate in January. Males at this time vigorously defend their individual areas. To make the right impression on their rivals and partner, they raise the crest and spines on their backs. If the tuateria is in danger, it also “bristles.” IN mating season males fight fiercely for the right to mate with a female. They often cause serious damage to each other. After some time, around October-December, the female lays eggs.

Further growth and development of young animals is also a very long process. Layed eggs with a hard shell in the amount of 9-17 pieces are buried in burrows. The female protects the clutch from other females and makes sure that they do not lay their eggs there. The hole is located in an open place, which is well warmed up by the rays of the sun. Egg development lasts approximately 12-15 months, this is the longest incubation period in reptiles. Before hatching, the cubs grow a hard, horny tooth on their snout, with which they pierce the soft shell of the egg. Hatterias grow very slowly.

The government of New Zealand, where they live, is doing everything possible to preserve these rare reptiles. It is strictly forbidden not only to catch living animals, but also to pick up dead animals, which constitute a valuable find for zoologists, because tuataria live for a very long time (up to 100 years), and therefore the opportunity to study their internal structure is rare. It is believed that the first settlers from Polynesia, who once settled in New Zealand, hunted gameteria for meat, which, however, as in many similar cases, did not pose a serious threat to these reptiles, and their numbers were approximately constant.

The real danger for these amazing creatures arose after Europeans arrived on the islands and brought domestic animals with them. By then there may be no natural enemies contributed to the conservation of this species. So, the hatteria could not resist dogs, cats and pigs. These domestic animals hunted the Gateria and ate their eggs. And for a very long time short period the populations of Gateria that lived on the North and South Islands disappeared. The next threat are rabbits brought from Europe. They eat grass and destroy the habitats of many species of insects that feed on the hatteria.

The habitats of the tuataria suffered not only destruction, but also severe changes. The islands where this one lives ancient lizard, declared nature reserves. Now this species has the status of a vulnerable species and is listed in the Red Book of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

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The most ancient reptile, preserved from the time of dinosaurs, is the three-eyed lizard Hatteria, or tuatara (lat. ) is a species of reptile from the order Beak-headed.

For the uninitiated person, tuateria ( ) is simply a large, impressive-looking lizard. Indeed, this animal has greenish-gray scaly skin, short strong paws with claws, a crest on its back consisting of flat triangular scales, like agamas and iguanas (the local name for tuateria is tuatara- comes from the Maori word meaning "spiky"), and has a long tail.

However, the hatteria is not a lizard at all. The features of its structure are so unusual that a special detachment was established for it in the class of reptiles - Rhynchocephalia, which means “beak-headed” (from the Greek “rynchos” - beak and “kephalon” - head; an indication of the premaxillary bone curving down).

True, this did not happen immediately. In 1831, the famous zoologist Gray, having only the skulls of this animal, gave it the name Sphenodon. After 11 years, a whole specimen of the tuatara fell into his hands, which he described as another reptile, giving it a name Hatteria punctata and classified as lizards from the aga family. Only 30 years later Gray established that Sphenodon And Hatteria- one and the same. But even before this, in 1867, it was shown that the resemblance of the tuatara to lizards is purely external, and in terms of its internal structure (primarily the structure of the skull), the tuatara stands completely apart from all modern reptiles.

And then it turned out that the hatteria, which now lives exclusively on the islands of New Zealand, is a “living fossil”, the last representative of a once widespread group of reptiles that lived in Asia, Africa, North America and even Europe. But all other beaked heads became extinct in the early Jurassic period, and hatteria managed to exist for almost 200 million years. It is surprising how little its structure has changed over this huge period of time, while lizards and snakes have achieved such diversity.

A very interesting feature of the tuateria is the presence of a parietal (or third) eye, located on the crown between the two real eyes*. Its function has not yet been clarified. This organ has a lens and a retina with nerve endings, but is devoid of muscles and any devices for accommodation or focusing. In a baby tuatara that has just hatched from an egg, the parietal eye is clearly visible - like a bare spot surrounded by scales that are arranged like flower petals. Over time, the “third eye” becomes overgrown with scales, and in adult tuatara it can no longer be seen. As experiments have shown, the hatteria cannot see with this eye, but it is sensitive to light and heat, which helps the animal regulate its body temperature, dosing the time it spends in the sun and in the shade.

As excavations show, not so long ago tuataria were found in abundance on the main islands of New Zealand - North and South. But the Maori tribes, who settled in these places in the 14th century, exterminated the Tuatara almost completely. The dogs and rats that came along with the people played an important role in this. True, some scientists believe that the hatteria died due to changes in climatic and environmental conditions. Until 1870, it was still found on the North Island, but at the beginning of the 20th century. has been preserved only on 20 small islands, of which 3 are located in Cook Strait, and the rest are off the northeastern coast of the North Island.

An adult male tuateria reaches a length (including tail) of 65 cm and weighs about 1 kg. Females are smaller and almost twice as light. These reptiles feed on insects, spiders, earthworms and snails. They love water, often lie in it for a long time and swim well. But the tuatara runs poorly.

Hatteria is a nocturnal animal, and unlike many other reptiles, it is active at relatively low temperatures - +6 o...+8 o C - this is another interesting feature of its biology. All vital processes in tuateria are slow, metabolism is low. There is usually about 7 seconds between two breaths, but a tuatara can remain alive without taking a single breath for an hour.

Winter time - from mid-March to mid-August - tuataria spend in burrows, hibernating. In the spring, females dig special small burrows into which, using their paws and mouth, they transfer a clutch of 8-15 eggs, each of which is about 3 cm in diameter and enclosed in a soft shell. The top of the masonry is covered with earth, grass, leaves or moss. The incubation period lasts about 15 months, that is, much longer than that of other reptiles.

What else is this animal famous for? Hatteria is one of the few reptiles with a real voice. Her sad, hoarse cries can be heard on foggy nights or when someone is bothering her.

Another amazing feature of the tuatara is its cohabitation with gray petrels, which nest on the islands in self-dug burrows. Hatteria often settles in these holes, despite the presence of birds there, and sometimes, apparently, destroys their nests - judging by the finds of chicks with their heads bitten off. So such a neighborhood, apparently, does not bring the petrels much joy, although usually birds and reptiles coexist quite peacefully - the hatteria prefers other prey, which it goes in search of at night, and in the daytime the petrels fly to the sea for fish. When the birds migrate, the hatteria hibernates.

The total number of living tuataria is now about 100,000 individuals. The largest colony is located on Stephens Island in the Cook Strait - 50,000 tuatara live there on an area of 3 km 2 - an average of 480 individuals per 1 hectare. On small islands with an area of less than 10 hectares, tuateria populations do not exceed 5,000 individuals. The New Zealand government has long recognized the value of this amazing reptile for science, and there has been a strict conservation regime on the islands for about 100 years. You can visit them only with special permission and strict liability is established for violators. In addition, tuatara are successfully bred at the Sydney Zoo in Australia.

Perhaps we can learn from the people of New Zealand how to protect our natural resources. As Gerald Durrell wrote, “Ask any New Zealander why they protect the tuateria. And they will consider your question simply inappropriate and will say that, firstly, this is a one-of-a-kind creature, secondly, zoologists are not indifferent to it, and, thirdly, if it disappears, it will disappear forever.” Can you imagine such an answer from a Russian resident to the question of why protect, say, the Caucasian cross? So I can’t. Maybe that’s why we don’t live like we do in New Zealand?

V.V. Bobrov

Hatteria is endangered relict species and protected by law, they are kept in captivity only in a few zoos.

Until 1989, it was believed that there was only one species of these reptiles, but Victoria University (Wellington) professor Charles Dougherty discovered that there are actually two of them - the hatteria ( ) and Brother Island tuatara ( Sphenodon guntheri).

Niramin - Jun 20th, 2016

In the Cook Strait, which separates the North and South Islands of New Zealand, lives an ancient creature - a unique three-eyed reptile, the hatteria or tuatara (lat. Sphenodon punctatus). This “living fossil,” whose representatives existed on Earth about 200 million years ago, can be found exclusively on the territory of the rocky islands of the strait. Therefore, the unique reptile is strictly protected, and those who want to see the tuateria in natural environment you need to get a special pass, otherwise violators will face severe punishment up to and including imprisonment.

Hatteria looks like common lizard and is in many ways similar to the iguana. Its olive-green body, reaching a length of about 70 cm, is decorated with yellow spots different sizes, which are located on her limbs and sides. A small ridge runs along the back along the spine, which is why locals call the reptile tuatara, which means “spiny.” Despite its resemblance to lizards, tuateria belongs to special squad beakheads. This is due to the fact that reptiles at a young age have movable skull bones. Therefore, the anterior end of the upper jaw, while moving the head, goes down and bends back, resembling a beak. In addition, young individuals have a special light-sensitive organ on the back of their heads - the third eye. This amazing reptile has a slow metabolism. Therefore, it grows very slowly and reaches sexual maturity only at 15-20 years. Hatteria is a long-lived species and lives for about 100 years.

The reptile feeds mainly on various insects, worms, spiders and snails, and during the breeding season the hatteria does not disdain the meat of gray petrel chicks, in whose nests it often settles down for living together.

Due to the uniqueness of tuateria, a special regime has been introduced on all islands where it is found. There are no dogs, cats, pigs or rodents here. They were taken from here so that they would not eat eggs and young individuals.

Photo: Hatteria.

Video: Living fossil — The amazing Tuatara reptile

Video: Tuatara

Tutteria lizards are considered the most ancient or largest. Hatteria

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