Recently, scientists have concluded through years of research that the DNA molecular evolution rate of New Zealand lizards has been fastest among all the organisms that have been tested.
The New Zealand giant lizard studied by the researchers is currently only living in New Zealand. As early as 2 million years ago during the Upper Triassic Period, it had lived on Earth with early dinosaurs. It can be said that the New Zealand lizard is the living fossil on Earth.
In a study of New Zealand lizards, David Lambert, an advanced chemistry expert at the Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, and his team have an ancient 8000-year-old skeleton of New Zealand lizards. A study was conducted and they restored the DNA sequence in the skeleton.
Afterwards, they were surprised to find that, although the appearance of New Zealand lizards has not changed significantly during the evolution of thousands of years. However, in the molecular sequence of DNA, their evolutionary speed is far higher than any other animal. Professor Lambert said, "In all the measured evolutionary speeds of animal DNA molecules, we found that New Zealand lizards have the fastest rate of evolution."
Prior to this, Professor Lambert and their team had conducted several years of research on the Adéliepenguins in the Penguin family, when scientists believed that the rate of DNA evolution of Adéliepenguins was the fastest. However, they later found out that New Zealand giant lizards have evolved faster and far faster than the evolution of bears, lions, cows and horses.
Evolutionary Biology expert Alan Wilson is a pioneer in molecular evolution. He once put forward an imaginary idea more than forty years ago that "in the course of biological evolution, molecular evolution and morphological evolution are separate." Over the years, This hypothesis has always been a controversy among academics from all sides in the academic community. However, this latest study of the evolutionary speed of New Zealand lizards clearly supports Professor Wilson's view.
For future work, Professor Lambert believes that this amazing discovery will greatly benefit the future research and protection of New Zealand lizards. However, their team hopes to extend the field of evolutionary research in the future to many other aspects and conduct observational studies on more biological species. He said, "We hope that we can continue to study and measure the speed of evolution of humans. Not only that, the fear of birds (produced in New Zealand, now extinct), and Antarctica fish will also be our research topics. In the course of their evolution, the evolution of molecules and contours is not also separated.(Peace) Among all the measured organisms, the DNA evolution of New Zealand lizards is the fastest.