* The tuatara is native to New Zealand
* It is the sole survivor of the beak-heads which is a group of very ancient reptiles
* The tuatara is the most ancient of all living reptiles. It is even older than the dinosaurs
* It has survived for almost 200 million years
* Tuatara can live up to 100 years
* The male is much bigger than the female
* Young tuatara have a third eye. It is on top of the brain between it's other eyes. It becomes covered over when the tuatara is an adult
Further to Martin Hunt's information on numbers of tuatara, they are found on ~30 islands around New Zealand, having become extinct from the mainland last century. Total estimated numbers are 50,000-60,000, but over half of those are on Stephens Island where numbers are exceptionally high. Tuatara are listed as rare in the 1992 IUCN Red Data Book.
Note that only 7 of the remaining populations are considered healthy. The others are at risk due to small population size and/or presence of the kiore or Polynesian rat which are thought to eat eggs and juveniles as well as competing for food and reducing ground vegetation and seedlings.
Also there are now three recognised taxa - one of which is found on a single tiny island and has maybe 300 adults. This population is one of the focuses of the NZ Department of Conservation's tuatara recovery plan - juveniles are being headstarted in captivity to be released on other islands to ensure more wild populations, as well as a permanent (?) captive colony.
The female lays 8 - 15 eggs in a shallow hole in the ground. The eggs are not cared for in any way by the parents. It takes 12 - 15 months for the young to hatch. The female may only lay eggs every 3 - 4 years
Tuataras are carnivores. They eat weta, moths and beetles. Sometimes they eat small lizards and even the eggs and chicks of petrels. At the zoo we feed them baby mice, huhu grubs, worms, meal worms and insects. They are fed twice a month.
Kiwi - a unique sort without wings birds. Includes five kinds for New Zealand.
All kinds Kiwi have strong four-fingered legs and a long narrow beak with nostrils on the tip. Wings are not developed, the tail is absent. Feathers Kiwi remind a dense wool more. Appearance and habits Kiwi so differ from other birds, that zoologist William Kalder has nicknamed them of " honourable mammals ».
Kiwi the greatest reduction of wings among birds is peculiar: they only 5 sm at length also are almost imperceptible among plumage. However at Kiwi the habit having a rest was kept to hide a beak under a wing. The body of a bird is in regular intervals covered by the soft, grey or светло-brown feathers more similar to a wool. The tail is absent. Legs four-fingered, short, but very strong, with sharp claws; their weight makes about weights of a body. A skeleton not flexible, bones heavy.
Within day Kiwi it is hidden in the dug hole, a hollow or under roots of trees. At big grey Kiwi holes represent the present labyrinth with several outputs; at others Kiwiholes are easier, with one output. On a territorial site Kiwi can be up to 50 refuges which the bird changes every day. A hole Kiwi borrows only in some weeks after will dig, - for this time the grass and a moss are in time grow up , masking an input. Sometimes Kiwi specially mask a jack, covering an input leaves and branches. In the afternoon they leave the refuges only in case of danger.
By estimations of scientists, about 1000 years ago more than 12 million Kiwioccupied woods of New Zealand; by 2004 their population was reduced up to 70 000 individuals. Until recently Kiwi died out with a speed up to 6 % of a population a year; mainly because of delivered on islands Europeans of predators - cats, dogs, and also because of reduction of the area of woods. In itself Kiwi - rather hardy birds who are poorly subject to illnesses and are capable to experience dangerous changes of an environment.
Kiwi - a national bird and an informal emblem of New Zealand. Is the favourite symbol of the New Zealandculture represented on coins, stamps
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий