Six babies for Orana Park tuatara

A tuatara has stunned Orana Park staff by mothering six baby tuatara.

Staff were surprised to find the six in one of their displays because they did not know the female was pregnant.

Head keeper Graeme Peatrie said that when it was known a female was pregnant, her eggs were removed and kept in a warmer place until they hatched. He said that because these eggs sat in much cooler temperatures they would have had a long incubation period of between 12 and 15 months.

The conditions they were hatched in were more in line with what tuatara faced in the wild, which made the new arrivals good for research purposes.