Spare a Moment for Wonder

If you pay attention, the world will continually astound you with it's miracles.  Consider 'Henry'.  Henry is a tuatara, a distinct type of lizard native only to the islands of New Zealand.  Henry is 111 years old.  And now, Henry is a father.

The specifics of tuatara sex are for the tuatara, and the tuatara alone.  But to further the stature of the venerable little guy, know that Henry successfully reproduced only after having a tumor surgically removed from his genitals.  That's a lot for anyone to go through.  But then again, Henry is a member of quite a remarkable species.  111 may seem like a ripe old age, but for a tuatara, it's merely the middle of the road: the lizards can live up to 250 years.  Of course even calling them lizards is a bit of a misnomer.  The tuatara, though a reptile superficially resembling a lizard, exists on its own in the taxonomic tree of life.  The two species of tuatara belong to the order Sphenodontia (cone tooth), and are nothing more than cousins of lizards and snakes.  In truth they are more closely related to the ancestors of the reptiles than to modern reptiles themselves; they are essentially living fossils, lingering on in a lone corner of the world since the days before the dinosaurs.  

There are signs that point to this ancient lineage, most notably the tuatara's 'third eye'.  That's right, a third eye.  It's only visible in newborns, being subsequently covered by skin in adults, but it's there none the less: a distinct bundle of photosensitive cells with a proper retina and cornea, all in the center of the tuatara's forehead.  It's called a parietal eye, an evolutionary anachronism linking the tuatara to the distant past.  On the face of it, this would suggest that the tuatara is merely a leftover from a bygone age, a relic too primitive to evolve.  Yet new genetic evidence suggests that the tuatara has actually evolved faster than almost any other living creature.  The changes have been on a molecular rather than physiological level, but they have been comparatively rapid, faster even than Homo sapien's own DNA evolution.

So there you have it: a super-evolving leftover dinosaur with a third eye that lives to a ridiculous old age on a single island in the southern hemisphere.  Henry the tuatara is a bit of a miracle, and his children will be miracles too.  Small miracles, old fashioned miracles, ugly little miracles maybe, but miracles none the less.  Such is nature.