Thank you for looking at one of our items. Up for Auction is a highly collectible Coin of theNew Zealand,most of these were melted down in 2006,That makes this coin all the more valuable. The coin is circulated and in great condition. . We do not grade the coins as it is very subjective.

Tuatara are reptiles endemic to New Zealand. Although resembling most lizards, they are part of a distinct lineage, the order Rhynchocephalia.^[7] Their name derives from the Māori language, and means "peaks on the back".^[8] The single species of tuatara is the sole surviving member of its order^[9], which originated in the Triassic period around 240 million years ago ^[10] and which flourished during the Mesozoic era.^[11] Their most recent common ancestor with any other extant group is with the squamates (lizards and snakes).^[12] For this reason, tuatara are of interest in the study of the evolution of lizards and snakes, and for the reconstruction of the appearance and habits of the earliest diapsids, a group of amniote tetrapods that also includes dinosaurs, birds, and crocodilians.

Tuatara are greenish brown and grey, and measure up to 80 cm (31 in) from head to tail-tip and weigh up to 1.3 kg (2.9 lb)^[13] with a spiny crest along the back, especially pronounced in males. They have two rows of teeth in the upper jaw overlapping one row on the lower jaw, which is unique among living species. They are also unusual in having a pronounced photoreceptive eye, the third eye, which is thought to be involved in setting circadian and seasonal cycles. They are able to hear, although no external ear is present, and have unique features in their skeleton, some of them apparently evolutionarily retained from fish. Tuatara are sometimes referred to as "living fossils",^[7] which has generated significant scientific debate. ^{[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]} While mapping its genome, researchers have discovered that the species has between 5 and 6 billion base pairs of DNA sequence, nearly twice that of humans.^[23]The tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus) has been protected by law since 1895.^[24][25] A second species, the Brothers Island tuatara (S. guntheri, Buller, 1877), was recognised in 1989,^[13] but since 2009 it has been reclassified as a subspecies (S. p. guntheri).^[26][27] Tuatara, like many of New Zealand's native animals, are threatened by habitat loss and introduced predators, such as the Polynesian rat (Rattus exulans). Tuatara were extinct on the mainland, with the remaining populations confined to 32 offshore islands^[11] until the first North Island release into the heavily fenced and monitored Karori Sanctuary in 2005'from wikipedia"