[00:00.00]It's home to a living fossil,
[00:02.09]a relict,
[00:03.42]barely changed for over 100 million years. The tuatara.
[00:07.91]And half the world's population survive on this one island refuge.
[00:12.89]During the reign of the dinosaurs,
[00:14.42]the ancestors of the tuatara were everywhere.
[00:17.62]They survived the cataclysm that killed off the dinosaurs,
[00:21.07]but then couldn't compete with the mammals and died out.
[00:24.95]Everywhere, except on what was then a mammal-free New Zealand.
[00:29.28]Unlike mammals,
[00:30.63]tuatara live life in the slow lane.
[00:34.68]Days can pass when they barely move a muscle.
[00:37.99]Sometimes taking just one breath an hour.
[00:41.49]They feed on wetas,
[00:43.25]beetles and other invertebrates
[00:45.60]but don't appear very good at catching them.
[00:48.30]Even after millions of years of practice,
[00:50.65]eye-mouth co-ordination is not what it could be.
[00:53.86]"Survival of the fittest" just doesn't seem to apply here. “
[00:58.49]The tuatara's survival,
[01:00.15]first on New Zealand,
[01:01.33]now on Stephens Island,
[01:02.75]proves a point - islands are pretty safe places to be,
[01:06.81]at least until invaded.