The Lonely 3-Eyed Reptile

reptiles just like every other group of organisms were not always as they are today long ago in the depths of deep time many strange and unique groups were evolving and dying out eventually leading up to the diversity we see around us today one of these extraordinary groups of reptiles were the Ring kouzef aliens this particular radiation first appeared in the Triassic period about 240 million years ago and went on to diversify in all sorts of ways evolving to hold a lot of the niches that modern-day lizards now fill rim kouzef aliens even managed to evolve aquatic forms that colonized marine environments possessing elongated bodies and likely feeding on fish so what happened to them this group was clearly successful and prospered for many millions of years as they diversified to take advantage of all the different niches they could fill however after the Jurassic period ended they became much less common and showed a drop in diversity and today there remains only one species of winged kouzef alien this is the tuatara the single species of which is sphenoid on punk'd artists the tuatara today survives only in New Zealand hanging on to existence after a long dramatic evolutionary history the tuatara is actually a fairly large reptile with the male as being capable of reaching length of about 60 centimeters and this is the biggest reptile to inhabit New Zealand this animal physically resembles lizards quite strongly even though it is not part of the lizard group however tuatara have numerous skeletal differences that quite clearly separate them from lizards these include differences in the number of holes in the skull the possession of a beak-like structure that has made from fused bones of a snout and having teeth that are just serrations of the jaw bones instead of separate structures tuatara have an extremely slow rate of growth continuing to develop until there are about 35 years old this also gives them a particularly long life span with the average animal living for around 60 years but an individual of this species could potentially survive until they're about 100 years old unusually for reptiles tuatara are very comfortable in colder climates and do not do as well in temperatures above about 25 degrees Celsius this is an adaptation that has allowed them to become successful in New Zealand the male's of the species possess a very prominent crust along their back and tail which can be stiffened in order to function as a display structure in males the crust is not as obvious but it's still present to atera like many species of lizards are also capable of detaching their tails a process known as caudal or Tata me if a predator grabs hold of the end of their tail they're able to separate an escape leaving behind a wriggling tail as a distraction the tail will eventually regrow though the new one will be made out of cartilage instead of bone even more remarkably than this though is that the tuatara actually possesses a third eye located on the back of the head this is termed the parietal eye it's only visible in young individuals since the eye becomes covered over by scales as the animal grows older but it has its own simple lens and is even connected to the brain the purpose of the parietal eye is not entirely clear but this characteristic is not unique to two atera it's also present in some lizards fish and amphibians but it is most distinct in a tuatara there are several theories as to what the function is including detecting what time of day it is helping with thermoregulation or to help with regulating hormones it was also once thought that the I could be used to look out for predators from above but it's now understood that the tuatara can't actually see out of the eye adult tuatara are mostly active at night and will hunt mainly for beetles but are also known to prey on lizards and birds adults will also eat young tuatara if they have the chance and so juveniles are only active during the day in order to avoid the cannibalistic tendencies of their elders as I've already mentioned tuatara are well suited to colder environments however they will actually hibernate during the winter months once temperatures drop below about 5 degrees Celsius the tuatara inhabits burrows that they have dug themselves or ones that they have stolen from burrowing buds and are fiercely territorial with both males and females defending their land using threat displays and using their vicious bite if necessary I've already briefly described the evolutionary history of the tuatara and other winkers of aliens but where exactly do they fit in with other reptile families as you can see the tuatara does look very much like lizards and this is because there is some relation between the two groups Rinku stuff aliens are the sister group to the Squa mates the family that includes lizards snakes and the strange legless amphibians together the rank of aliens and Squa mates make up the larger group No as Lapidus aura morphs which is one of the two main branches of the currently living reptiles the other branch the arcus aura morphs comprises of the arcus ores including crocodiles and dinosaurs as well as probably the Turtles although their placement is something of a debate this is obviously a very simplified overview of reptile relationships but hopefully it is able to give you a rough understanding of whether tuatara fits into the tree TOA tara are also a member of the unique association of animals that have been called living fossils due to their alleged strong resemblance to prehistoric species of Rinku so Fabian's leading some people to suspect that they have not evolved much in the millions of years they have been around for however studies have shown a great deal of physical differences between ancient species and the tuatara and has actually been shown that this animal is evolving at a very fast rate compared to other creatures in fact the tuatara is one of the fastest evolving animals that has been examined so far which seems to contradict everything we know about her you might expect that such a slow growing animal that possesses a slow metabolism and slow rate of reproduction would also evolve very slowly but that's actually the complete opposite of what's happening the study that discovered this incredible revelation looked at DNA samples from the bones of an eight thousand year old tuatara and shows that even though the animal might not seem to have changed very much of the cause of its evolution at the DNA level it is evolving very quickly indeed as if the tuatara needed anything else to make it an even more remarkable creature unfortunately despite being the last surviving species of its ancient lineage the tuatara has not had a good time in the past and was wiped out in many of the locations where this reptile used to thrive millions of these animals used to live on the two main islands of New Zealand but once the first humans arrived here bringing with them rats and dogs that preyed on the tuatara they all died out becoming restricted to 32 smaller islands offshore that were devoid of any mammals that is until Europeans reached New Zealand bringing more rats and dogs in addition to cats and ferrets rats made it to several of the islands where tuatara were living severely reducing the tuatara populations on the islands they reached evidence suggests that these mammals prey on the eggs and juvenile tuatara so although they don't pose much of a threat at the populations are unable to recover as they are slowed readers and so cannot replace the lost numbers in time in 1895 things were getting so bad for these animals that the New Zealand government fully protected the reptile as well as their eggs but with a continued spread of rats the tuatara population carried on declining today Tara Tara are very rare on any items that do accommodate rats and the largest populations can only be found in rat free environments their Island habitats also make the tuatara very vulnerable to things such as fires and habitat destruction of course efforts have been made to save the species from extinction and there are government programs dedicated to protecting the tuatara in 1988 the New Zealand Department of Conservation initiated such a program and now many tuatara hatchlings are raised in captivity by biologists before being released onto rat free Islands giving them an advantage in the hopes that they will be able to boost the population in 2005 tuatara were actually reintroduced to a wildlife sanctuary on mainland New Zealand the first time that they had been present in the wild here for over 200 years there is currently estimated to be between 60,000 and 100,000 world tuatara still alive in the world which although nowhere near as bad as some other more unfortunate animals is still low compared to what their numbers used to be it's sad to think that the very last species of this truly ancient an extraordinary lineage was in such danger of extinction and I hope we don't end up losing the tuatara anytime soon fortunately it seems as though conservation efforts are doing a lot of good for this remarkable creature hopefully you now have a better understanding of this animal its evolutionary history and its conservation and I hope that by making this video I can increase awareness of this reptile and pass on an admiration for the wonderful tuatara thank you so much for watching this video I really hope you enjoyed it and learn something new if you would like to learn more about our world and the wonderful life we share it with please feel free to subscribe to the channel if you think we deserve it and if you would like to see more from us [Music]

Channel: Ben G Thomas

Views: 196,127

Rating: 4.930192 out of 5

Keywords: Biology, Science, Paleontology, Palaeontology, Dinosaurs, Animals, Nature, Wildlife, Ben, Thomas, Prehistory, Anatomy, Fossil, Bones

Id: nCyNMF9eVy8

Length: 8min 52sec (532 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 04 2018