The bridge lizard, which is up to 80 centimeters long and weighs one kilogram, can easily be mistaken for a small dragon due to its brownish, light gray spotted scales, small claws and long, jagged tail. The lizards grow very slowly and are only sexually mature when they are 20 years old. Their life expectancy is correspondingly high: they can reach an age of over 100 years. These amazing animals can only be found on 20 smaller islands off North New Zealand and are therefore under strict species protection.
The bridge lizards are also particularly interesting because their construction plan has barely changed in almost 200 million years. They are therefore also considered to be “living fossils”. In order to find out why this primal reptile is so persistent and where it is in the family tree of the species, researchers have now sequenced the genome of the Tuatara for the first time. For eight years, over 60 researchers worked in collaboration with local Maori communities in New Zealand to uncover the properties of the amazing lizard.
The new research results put the tuatara into a branch that they initially shared with lizards and snakes. They split off around 250 million years ago to form an independent order, according to the researchers. In contrast, primates, for example, only emerged about 65 million years ago.
The analyzes also showed that the Tuatara genome is 67 percent larger than that of humans. Stefan Prost, scientist at the LOEWE Center for Translational Biodiversity Genomics, sees this as a reason for the animals’ long life expectancy: “Our analysis showed that they have more of the genes that protect the body from the effects of aging than any other research has done so far Vertebrate species “. In addition, due to genetic factors, bridge lizards seem to be less susceptible to diseases.