tuatara (original) (raw)

Abstract

What is a tuatara? The tuatara is a modern reptile found only in New Zealand (Figure 1). Although it superficially looks like a medium-sized lizard it is in fact the only living member of the Rhynchocephalia, a group of animals that were successful, globally distributed, and ecologically diverse during the Mesozoic, alongside dinosaurs. A wealth of molecular and fossil evidence shows that Rhynchocephalia are the closest living relatives of Squamata (lizards and snakes), and that the two groups diverged about 250 million years ago. Therefore, humans are more closely related to kangaroos, for example, than the tuatara is to a lizard.

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