Tuatara

Tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus), reptile resembling the lizard. Inhabitants of a few small islands off the coast of New Zealand, they are the last surviving members of the order Rhynchocephalia, which lived on earth more than 200 million years ago. Green-skinned tuataras have a row of scales down their backs and tails and grow to 2 ft (60 cm) in length. Females carry their eggs for up to a year before depositing them in the ground, where they take another year to hatch. Some tuataras live as long as 77 years.