The Tuatara

New Zealand has a lot of bugs and birds and beasts distinctive,

And that's because the islands have for so long not been linked-tive

with any other land mass, archipelago, or connection –

in isolation things have grown by rather weird selection.

Take the tuatara, unlike saurians of old;

It remains quite active even when its blood is cold.

It eats the giant weta – lays its eggs and waits a year

For baby tuataras to quite suddenly appear.

It lives to be a hundred, though it may seem much, much more

To the tuatara on the boring Christchurch shore.