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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
An evolutionary history of the tuatara consists of six pages and focuses on the reasons for its particular evolutionary progression. Seven sources are cited in the bibliography.
Page Count:
6 pages (~225 words per page)
File: TG15_TGtuatara.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
Characterized by its long lifespan of around 100 years, it was only studied seriously by paleontologists during the nineteenth century, when in 1845 the British Museums Dr. Richard Owen
denoted some similarities between the tuatara and South African reptile fossil remains, a distinct order he promptly named Rhynchocephalia, which means "beak head" (Lutz, 2006, p. 43). Recently, researchers
have discovered that there are actually two tuatara species that lived throughout the New Zealand mainland, Sphenodon punctatus and Sphenodon guntheri (Nelson et al, 2002, p. 633).
Physically speaking, they have spikes that run from their heads almost to their tails, are nearly two feet long, and weigh approximately two pounds
(Dino Die-Off, 2007, p. 11). They are typically olive green in color with white speckles (although some varieties are slate gray, dark pink or red) and some of the
males also feature a black spot on the sides of their heads (Lutz, 2006, p. 16). An excellent close-up photograph of the tuatara can be found at http://nzphoto.tripod.com/animal/tuatara/tuatara.jpg. Tuataras
are the lone species have two rows of upper teeth that actually overlap with a row of teeth in the lower jaw (Dino Die-Off, 2007, p. 11). These creatures
of the night tend to live in seabird burrows like those of Fairy Prions because they particularly enjoy feasting on the insects attracted by their droppings (Lutz, 2006, p. 41).
Discussion This particular species is important because it is literally a pristine relic of the past. The first tuatara is believed to date back nearly 200 million years.
According to Lutz (2006), "There is no other animal that has existed, basically unchanged, for so long a period (Lutz, 2006, p. 41). Its evolutionary species is significant in
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