刺背鳄蜥，又称楔齿蜥，是最古老的爬虫类之一，主要分布于新西兰周边诸岛滨海岩岸区，以蜥蜴或海鸟的雏鸟或鸟蛋为主食，夜行性，多数栖息在岩石海岸由海鸟凿出的的洞穴中。
刺背鳄蜥的进化速率比起包括洞熊、狮子、公牛和马在内的动物，都要快得多。
The tuatara rate is significantly faster than for animals including the cave bear, lion, ox and horse.
我们本以为刺背鳄蜥应该进化得很慢，就像它们做什么事都很慢一样——长得慢，繁殖慢，新陈代谢也慢。
Of course we would have expected that the tuatara, which does everything slowly — they grow slowly, reproduce slowly and have a very slow metabolism — would have evolved slowly.
他们发现，虽然刺背鳄蜥的大部分形态在长期的进化中并没有产生变化，但从DNA层面上看，它们比其他已经检测过的动物的进化速度都要快。
They found that, although tuatara have remained largely physically unchanged over very long periods of evolution, they are evolving - at a DNA level - faster than any other animal yet examined.
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