Submission + - Living Fossil is Fastest Evolving Animal
Pickens writes: "Researchers have found that New Zealand's "living dinosaur" the tuatara is evolving at a DNA level faster than any other animal. "Of course we would have expected that the tuatara, which does everything slowly — they grow slowly, reproduce slowly and have a very slow metabolism — would have evolved slowly," said DNA expert Professor David Lambert. "In fact, at the DNA level, they evolve extremely quickly, which supports a hypothesis proposed by the evolutionary biologist Allan Wilson, who suggested that the rate of molecular evolution was uncoupled from the rate of morphological evolution." In related news Henry the tuatara finally proved his manhood at age 111, when he was caught in the act by tuatara curator Lindsay Hazley mating with Mildred, a "prolific breeder" aged 70 to 80 years. The tuatara, Sphendon punctatus, is found only in New Zealand and is the only surviving member of a distinct reptilian order Sphehodontia that lived alongside early dinosaurs and separated from other reptiles 200 million years ago in the Upper Triassic period. The original paper is available for $31.50."