Hardly a place to call home, predators lurking and birds coming in and out of your burrow, well that’s the life of a tuatara.
Yum! What’s on the menu tonight?
Tuataras have lots of favourite foods, such as beetles, weta, moths, worms, spiders and small lizards. Sometimes they get easier food by sneaking the eggs from the birds they share their burrow with.
Rats, mice, stoats, weesels! Uh Oh!!!
Tuatara hate their predators including pigs, people, rodents, ferrets, stoats, wessels, cats and dogs.
Well there has to be some way tuataras get away from their predators sometimes, well guess what? There is! They make their tail fall off, sounds crazy right, well it’s true! It works like this; they make it fall off and the tail keeps on wriggling to distract the predators while the tuatara has enough time to run away.
Ah, Home Sweet Home! (Sort of)
Tuataras live in burrows under the ground around 1.5m deep and 20cms wide. They have two entries; one to get in and one to get out. They go in from the flat surface and out the top. The females also have their babies in their burrow.
The Life Cycle of the Tuatara!
When the tuatara is a baby, it is in an egg, when they’re in their egg, they’re covered with yolk. When the tuatara is ready, it has a small spike on its nose to crack open its egg. When a baby hatches it weighs about 4-5 grams and they have a visible third eye, but as they get older their skin starts to grow over it. When they are grown up, the female weighs 550gms and males weigh 1000gms. Females grow to 60cm long and males grow to 80cms long.
Why is the tuatara dieing off?
Well by what we know, the tuatara is one of the last ancient species in the world. As you can see, the tuatara has the least population and some animals are really popular.
So when you see a tuatara just think of what they call home.
THE END
Yum! What’s on the menu tonight?
Tuataras have lots of favourite foods, such as beetles, weta, moths, worms, spiders and small lizards. Sometimes they get easier food by sneaking the eggs from the birds they share their burrow with.
Rats, mice, stoats, weesels! Uh Oh!!!
Tuatara hate their predators including pigs, people, rodents, ferrets, stoats, wessels, cats and dogs.
Well there has to be some way tuataras get away from their predators sometimes, well guess what? There is! They make their tail fall off, sounds crazy right, well it’s true! It works like this; they make it fall off and the tail keeps on wriggling to distract the predators while the tuatara has enough time to run away.
Ah, Home Sweet Home! (Sort of)
Tuataras live in burrows under the ground around 1.5m deep and 20cms wide. They have two entries; one to get in and one to get out. They go in from the flat surface and out the top. The females also have their babies in their burrow.
The Life Cycle of the Tuatara!
When the tuatara is a baby, it is in an egg, when they’re in their egg, they’re covered with yolk. When the tuatara is ready, it has a small spike on its nose to crack open its egg. When a baby hatches it weighs about 4-5 grams and they have a visible third eye, but as they get older their skin starts to grow over it. When they are grown up, the female weighs 550gms and males weigh 1000gms. Females grow to 60cm long and males grow to 80cms long.
Why is the tuatara dieing off?
Well by what we know, the tuatara is one of the last ancient species in the world. As you can see, the tuatara has the least population and some animals are really popular.
So when you see a tuatara just think of what they call home.
THE END