Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In mammalogy, a genus of extinct megatherioid edentates, or fossil sloths, remains of which occur in the bone-caves of South America.
- noun In herpetology:
- noun A genus of extant rhynchocephalous lizards of New Zealand. S. punctatus is known as the tuatera. The name is synonymous with Hatteria.
- noun A lizard of this genus.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) Same as
hatteria .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The
tuatara .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun coextensive with the order Rhynchocephalia: tuataras
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[New Latin Sphēnodōn, genus name : spheno– + –odon.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From the genus name Sphenodon
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Examples
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Many years later euryapsids had vanished into the lepidosaurs sphenodon, snakes and lizards-all diapsids as a secondary change, and then there was the term “sauropsid” which I saw for the 1st time at AMNH which gathered together all non synapsids and non turtles.
Drawing a Line in the Academic Sand - The Panda's Thumb 2005
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