相簿列表 » Reptiles of New Zealand.

It was a raining day. After the dusk, the rain was stopped, the time was around 10 pm. Although it's summer now in New Zealand, but the wind outside was blew from the south... Pretty cold, I though it was about 10 degrees Celsius. Luca and me, we both knew that the low temperature might got some negative effect to our field observation, but no one gave up. Finally, we found one Brothers Island Tuatara (or Günther's Tuatara, Sphenodon guntheri)! It was just there! Just like waiting for us there! It's lay on the trail, didn't run and didn't scare... What a nice reptile! We are honored we can find this old species! According to the fossil record, Tuatara occured when 225 mya, this old species was watching the raise and fall of Dinosaur, until the extinction of Moa recently, until Human. We hope the cute small dinosaur could keep staying on Earth forever!
那天下了整天的雨，好不容易雨停了，正好在天完全黑的晚上十點左右，停了。雖然是紐西蘭的夏天，但是外面刮著的卻是南方來的冷風，氣溫大概只有十度。Luca和我雖然都知道這很有可能不利於我們的夜間觀察，但是沒有人有放棄的念頭。終於，花了一些時間在島上亂走之後，看到了一隻古氏喙頭蜥 (Günther's Tuatara or Brothers Island Tuatara, Sphenodon guntheri)。這隻古氏喙頭蜥彷彿是特地出現來等我們似的，靜靜的趴在步道上，對於我們的接近和觸摸一點都不在意的樣子。牠有夠冰！雖然在接觸過北方喙頭蜥 (Northern Tuatara, Sphenodon punctatus) 之後，對於喙頭蜥的低體溫已經有了心理準備... 但是這隻在寒冷夜間出現的古氏喙頭蜥仍然讓我們吃了一驚！這個分布範圍和數量都遠少於北方喙頭蜥的物種最近被認為應該只是一個遺傳上略有差異的小族群，不應該是個有效種... 但也有別派的說法支持了古氏喙頭蜥仍是有效種。科學是必須要不斷的辯證的，在我不知道喙頭蜥到底有幾種的時候，當然是以最寬鬆的態度去盡量多記錄了。維持了一貫的"淡定"作風，喙頭蜥真的是配合度非常高的模特兒。完成了觀察拍攝之後，Luca和我才忽然驚覺我們已經快要冷到受不了了！感謝阿古 (牠的名字) 願意和遠道而來的客人碰個面！從兩億兩千五百萬年前就出現，看著恐龍的興盛、殞落，一直到近代滅絕的恐鳥，然後是人類；這個歷史悠久的物種，顯然不像牠們冷酷的外表和體溫，是群非常好客且溫柔友善的小恐龍！