New Zealand's living dinosaurs break evolution records
04 Mar 2008
Ancient New Zealand Tuatara have broken records for DNA evolution - despite being slow to grow and reproduce and having a sluggish metabolism.
Tuatara, often referred to as living dinosaurs, have largely not changed physically over very long periods of evolution going back millions of years. But analysis of their old bones in New Zealand has shown that their DNA has evolved faster than any other animal species yet studied.
The discovery has not only astonished New Zealand scientists, but it is creating interest worldwide.
The discovery was made by a team from Massey University’s Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution who studied tuatara DNA.
The scientists recovered DNA sequences from the bones of tuatara up to 8750 years old and compared them to blood samples of modern day tuatara to establish the speed of the DNA changes.
Evolutionary biologist Professor Lambert said the tuatara rate was significantly faster than for animals such as the cave bear, lion, ox and horse.
''What we found is that the tuatara has the highest molecular evolutionary rate that anyone has measured.''
Professor Lambert said the finding would be helpful in terms of future study and conservation of the tuatara, and the team now hoped to extend the work to look at the evolution of other animal species after studying about a dozen so far.
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