Most of us know our beloved national reptile, the tuatara, as the rarest of global creatures.
Time was, however, when the tutara was just as plentiful as those other reptilian characters, and not just here in the land of the long white cloud.
Now a new Harvard-led study throws light on the tuatara's reptile whanau, in Arizona, dating all the way back to the Early Jurassic period.
The American species has been named Navajosphenodon sani after the Navajo nation.
University of Otago Palaeogenetics Laboratory director Nic Rawlence was involved with the study.
He spoke to Corin Dann.
