The Washington times., 1923-02-25

Earth to-day, While All His Old
Early Childhood Acquaintance
Have Become Extinct or Taken
on New Forms.
THE scientific world was startled, not
long ago, by the report that traces
tsof living dinosaur had been
found in Patagonia. Expeditions were
Organized to capture it. Scientists grew
bitter as they argued over what should
be done with the dinosaur when it was
found
All because the dinosaur is very an
cient form of life which natural history
experts think died out three million years
ago..
While the scientists were calling each
other names, creature living on tiny
islet off the New Zealand coast might
have had good laugh at their excite
ment
For this creature, Sphenedon, to give it
its .scientific name, or Tuatera, as the
Maoris called it, is at least million years
older than the dinosaur. And it exists to-
GAuSt
saur persisted from the earth!
Sphenedon, eight million years old by
the most conservative estimate, is a
species, genus, family and order all by it
self It is reptile, but it is neither croco-
die, lizard, snake nor turtle. But. loosely
speaking, he is more of a lizard than any
thing, else.
He. is really the grand-daddy of them
all, and, by the same token, the ancestral.
form of the bird. tits seven and half
million years older than the first man,
and it looks just the same now as it did
in the, Permian period of the Palaeozoic
age. eight million years ago.
Yes, through all those eight million
years Sphenedon has gone right ON in his
rut. Old continents were destroyed and
new Continents arose from ocean, and
they in turn grew old and were destroyed,
but. Sphenedon went jogging along, never
changing his appearance, or his habits or
anything Like some human beings, what
was good enough for his grandfather was
good enough for him. He is the original
''stahd -patter."
The Tuatera or Sphenedon is so import
ant, scientifically, that the government of
New Zealand has taken steps to protect it
against extinction. 1t is an open question,
however, whether the government has in
terYened in time, for as far back as 1882.
the creatures we're very rare.
At one time, scientists believe, Sphen-
edon flourished all over New Zealand. But
it has disappeared from the two main ISL
found on a group of rocky '1nds, none
of them more than six acre in extent, in
the Bay of Plenty on the ,ust side of
the North Island.
they gradually disappeared from all
butt enc of the islands, and on that one
KaEewa, only one man now knows where
to find them. They have survived on
karewa because even the MaOriS-the
natives of New Zealand-avoided it-and
the reason for their fear of it was dis
covered when a scientific expedition
found Sphenedon there, as will be told
later on.
Now, why has Sphenedon outlived the
dinosaur and all the other prehistoric
creatures who first appeared on this
earth. good while afterward? Why has
he not changed, or adapted himself, IKE
other old forms of life that still exist?
Dr., G. Kingsley Noble, Curator of
Hefpetology of the American Museum of
Natural History in New York, has a very
suceinct answer to these two questions.
"Sphenedon still lives on Karewa,"
said DIR. Noble, because the conditions
of life on that island are about the same
to-day as they were eight million years
ago. He hasn't changed in all those
years because he hasn't had to change.
"Sphenedon exists to-day where he
does simply because he is Interchangeable.
Life. has to adapt itself to conditions.
When conditions change, life adapts itself
or perishes That is what happened to
the zdiaosaur.
"He lived and flourished for four mil
lion years. Then conditions changed and
he didn't. He died. No doubt Sphene-
dom died too, in other parts of the earth.
We have seen him die on the larger isl
lands, of New Zealand. He wouldn't
exist to-day on Karewa if it had changed
much"
And this is one of the reasons why
w-Zealand, even more than Australia,
is so interesting to the naturalist. 1t con-
tains traces of forms of life not found