Dr. Charles Jackson
Tuatara have been referred to as living fossils, due to a perception that they retain many basal characteristics from around the time of the squamate–rhynchocephalian split (240 MYA). Morphometric analyses of variation in jaw morphology among tuatara and extinct rhynchocephalian relatives have been argued to demonstrate morphological conservatism and support for the classification of tuatara as a ‘living fossil’, but the reliability of these results has been criticised and debated. ~Wikipedia
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a neat and tidy set of evolutionary facts showing how organisms evolve and then reach stasis? It would certainly make keeping those pesky creationists at bay. But here is an example from a recent report that makes it rather laughable to think of the tuatara as more primitive than lizards:
