The tuatara – past and future

legacies left to future generations. When European explorers reached New Zealand in 1769 they found two large islands, which together they called the ‘mainland’, and many tiny offshore islands around the coast. The naturalists who came with the explorers disregarded the tuatara, though it is improbable none were seen. Only several decades later did a tuatara specimen reach the British Museum, where it was eventually classified as just another type of lizard. One of the first scientists who realized that aspects of tuatara anatomy were odd—unchanged for tens of thousands of years—was Albert Gunther in 1876. Gunther believed the tuatara was one of the most valuable objects in zoological anatomical collections, and also noted, in passing, the reptile was likely to become extinct. From today’s perspective, it is striking that Gunther expressed no concern about the probable demise of the tuatara. He and his contemporaries were products of their age, strongly influenced by Charles Darwin’s theory, which had only recently been published. Their views were something like this: ‘Extinction is a natural process. It is sad that species disappear, but that is part of nature.’