The tuatara, scientists have learned, is in some ways a so-called living fossil…
As a femur-shaped island paradise that snapped away from the Gondwana super-continent some 80 million years ago, New Zealand is famously home to eccentric forms of wildlife that look like pets for a Hobbit…
The animal that may well be New Zealand’s most bizarrely instructive species at first glance looks surprisingly humdrum: the tuatara. A reptile about 16 inches long with bumpy, khaki-colored skin and a lizardly profile, the tuatara could easily be mistaken for an iguana. Appearances in this case are wildly deceptive. The tuatara — whose name comes from the Maori language and means “peaks on the back” — is not an iguana, is not a lizard, is not like any other reptile alive today…
(read more: NY Times)
