EXPERT REACTION: Arizona fossil suggests tuatara are 190 million years old
An overseas study suggests the body plan of 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. The species has been named Navajosphenodon sani after the Navajo nation. Until now, we haven’t known much about the tuatara’s origins because its fossils are highly fragmented.
Journal/conference: Communications Biology
Link to research (DOI): 10.1038/s42003-022-03144-y
Organisation/s: Harvard University and Boston College, US, and University of Bristol, UK
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