Rare Vertebrate of the Week Vol. 1

Science!  I've been meaning to have this sort of posting for a while now.  I guess the tiger post counts as a forerunner, but I suppose the idea will be to introduce RV reader(s) to a more obscure creature.  So here goes:

The Tuatara:  Not a Lizard

This thing is not a lizard.  It's the last surviving member of a whole reptilian order called Sphehodontia.  (For some context, the group that contains all bear, dog, cat, and badger-like species is just one mammalian order called Carnivora.  Lizards and snakes are grouped in the order Squamata.)  So, yeah...rare indeed!  It currently resides only in a magical land called New Zealand, and its appearance and habits haven't changed since the first of its kind emerged to skulk amongst early dinosaurs and other weird reptiles, 200 million years ago.

But adding to its rarity is a fun fact that I just found.  Researchers at Emory University in NZ have discovered that, despite its implacable morphology, the DNA of the Tuatara HAS been changing at a record speed compared to all other vertebrates.  Double rare!  Not only does this deepen the mystery of this already peerless vertebrate, but it contributes to a hypothesis about how the rate of molecular evolution (i.e., how fast DNA sequences change over time) is "uncoupled" from that of morphological evolution (how fast the body and behaviors change).  This makes the study of DNA and evolution a bit messier, one might imagine, but also even more interesting.  Check it:

Cheers!