Scientists Unveil the Complex and ‘Highly Unusual’ Genetics of Tuataras – techtoday19

Commonly mistaken for a lizard for its appearance, the tuatara is a reptile endemic to New Zealand. A team of researchers conducted the largest vertebrate genome sequence analysis to link the modern species to snakes and lizards from 250 million years ago during the Triassic period.
A collaboration between the University of Adelaide, Otago University, and the South Australian Museum studied the rare tuatara, which means ‘peaks on the back’ in the Maori language, an indigenous tribe from New Zea…

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