Portal:New Zealand/Selected article/Week 22, 2006
The Tuataras are two species of reptile found in New Zealand. They are the only surviving members of the Rhynchocephalia, or Sphenodontia/Sphenodontida and have been classified as endangered species since 1895.
Tuataras, like many native New Zealand animals, were threatened by habitat loss, harvesting, and introduced species such as mustelids and rats, and were extinct on the mainland with the remaining populations confined to 32 mammal free offshore islands, until a first mainland release into the heavily fenced and monitored Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in 2005.
They resemble lizards, but are actually equally distantly related to lizards and snakes, which are their closest living relatives. For this reason, they are of great interest in the study of the evolution of lizards and snakes. The tuatara is most likely the most unspecialised living amniote; the brain and mode of locomotion resemble that of amphibians and the heart is more primitive than any other reptile's. The tuatara has a famous third eye on the top of its head (called the parietal eye).