Dinosaurs Still Breeding in New Zealand
Some of New Zealand’s oldest inhabitants, the Tuatara, are continuing to be sucessfully breed in captivity.
For the second time in two months, New Zealand’s rare tuatara population has produced some surprising results with a new baby hatched at the Zealandia wildlife sanctuary and another eight on their way at Wellington Zoo.
The tuatara is a reptile unique to New Zealand, and the only survivor of a species that became extinct about 60 million years ago. Breeding is a tricky business and eggs can take up to a year to hatch.
Uploaded on Flickr by digitaltrails
For the first time in 20 years fertile tuatara eggs have been found at Wellington Zoo, and according to staff this represents a remarkable breeding success story. It typically takes five years for a tuatara breeding pair to conceive. However, in this case, the tuatara parents – father Tuatahi and mother Matamuri – were only introduced to each other at Christmas 2009, and the fact that they have already produced fertile eggs has astonished zoo staff. The eggs were found by two of Wellington Zoo’s reptile keepers as they were digging Matamuri out of the earth in her enclosure for her April weigh-in.Tuatara are notoriously difficult to breed, and the last time any were successfully raised at Wellington Zoo was in the 1988 breeding season. The zoo currently has eight tuatara in residence.
Last month a baby tuatara spotted at Zealandia: Karori Sanctuary Experience in Wellington became only the second youngster born on the New Zealand mainland in over 200 years. In 2005, 200 tuatara were released at Zealandia in a bid to boost the mainland population but babies were not expected this soon.
You can find the Zealandia here.
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The tuatara looks like an iguana to me but I guess it is bigger. Does this mean that the tuatara is a survivor of the ice age? It’s cool to see a creature that exists from the dinosaur era.
The tuatara is a reptile endemic to New Zealand which, though it resembles most lizards, is actually part of a distinct lineage, order Sphenodontia. The two species of tuatara are the only surviving members of its order, which flourished around 200 million years ago.
Iguana is a lizard. Though tuatara resemble lizards, the similarity is superficial, since the family has several characteristics unique among reptiles.
I think this mysterious creature is more likely to be a lacerta than a dinosaur! Cute:)))
They look cool on the pictures. I may agree to watch it sitting in a cage. But I never want to meet any of these creatures in real nature.
That’s all fine and dandy but if takes them so long to breed and that’s why they’re becoming extinct, well maybe we shouldn’t mess with that, no?
It does resemble an iguana greatly, but i can see the differences.
Yes it reminds me of many iguanas I’ve seen. The eyes definitely remind me of a dinosaur’s though.
i could not forget iguana
I can’t beleive this fact – it is too incredible!
That’s a great success for the NZ wildlife foundation. The tuatara is could easily be NZs second animal after the kiwi so it’s important we do all we can for it.
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It is so funny that some countries going back to stone age…