oh sure i love talkin about tuatatas, theyre so interesting ! first notable thing about them: this thing right here ??
not actually a lizard !
despite its appearance, the tuatara belongs to a distinct and Very Old order called rhynchocephalia, which used to be full of scaly things and now is down to the two remaining species of these guys. the resemblance to lizards is mostly superficial though, and theres a bunch of things about em thatre specific only to this reptile
so ! tuataras ! both species are only found in areas of new zealand, theyre Pretty Endangered, and the name comes from maori meaning “peaks on the back”. most of em look like jim henson puppets. despite having gone through quite a few changes when compared to their extinct ancestors, the tuatara is an immense source of fascination because of what it HAS retained : youve got a parietal eye, which is a primitive lightsensing organ that used to be found on most reptiles ( and a lot of other things ) before being phased out, although some reptiles and amphibians still have em, and in the tuatara it actually has traces of a lens and rods and cones, suggesting that at one point there used to be much more developed eye there
the spot is largely unnoticeable when theyre adults, but its definitely more distinctive in younger ones, OR SAY…. green iguanas
theyve also proved they can hear besides having no external ear holes, similar to sea turtles, and compared to every other reptile on earth theyve got INCREDIBLY slow metabolisms and lifestyles. they thrive in lower temperatures down to 41 F, and anything over 80 degrees or so will actually just. kill em. damn
it takes up to TWENTY YEARS…… for a tuatara to reach maturity. THEN after a lengthy courtship dance involving crests, it can take an impregnated female another four years to lay and then up to ANOTHER fifteen dang months to hatch, earning the tuatara the award for the longest period between offspring found in any reptile
the slow living has an upside though !! these reptiles have Ridiculously long lifespans, living on average around 60 years in the wild and Much Longer in captivity – in fact one breeding pair in 2009 recently saw the hatching of 11 eggs made by 111 year old henry and 80 year old mildred, which are their actual names
(here is prince henry holding Tuatara Henry, who was 100 at the time and lookin great)
111 years !!! and some scientist theorize that with the right conditions, they could live up to around 200. not bad for a reptile who looks like they were run through a washing machine and got their skin all shrunk up
