Re: Tuataras are the roadrunners of molecular evolution.

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

Cool! I'll download it on Monday.

> The tuatara of New Zealand is a unique reptile that
> coexisted with dinosaurs and has changed little
> morphologically from its Cretaceous relatives.

Not so fast. For example, the closure of the lower temporal bar is 
secondary, and throughout the Mesozoic rhynchocephalian diversity was 
non-negligible...

> Tuatara have very slow metabolic and growth rates,
> long generation times and slow rates of reproduction.
> This suggests that the species is likely to exhibit a very
> slow rate of molecular evolution.

That's right, but these features are most likely all rather recent.

> tuatara have the highest rate of
> molecular change recorded in vertebrates.

:-o