An American study suggests that the tuatara, New Zealand’s much-loved taonga reptile species, may have evolved as long as 190 million years ago, and has hardly changed since. The researchers say today’s tuatara has a similar skeletal structure and jaw to fossils of a just discovered species of ancient sphenodontian – the tuatara’s reptile whānau – in Arizona, dating all the way back to the Early Jurassic period.
