Henry and Mildred are two elderly tuartaras, a lizard-like species that has remained virtually unchanged since dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and they decided to wait a while to start a family, a long, long while. After a romance stretching over four decades, the 111-year-old male and 80 year-old female stunned the world by finally making babies. Now their reptilian romance has inspired a film -- proving that even old cold-blooded animals can still get hot.
When the elderly reptiles first mated after a long period of abstinence back in 2008, news of their successful reproduction made them instant celebrities. And, for a pair of filmmakers from New Zealand, the extendo-romance between Henry and Mildred seemed like the perfect centerpiece for a documentary on the fascinating, yet little known tuartara species.
Six months later, Mildred had laid eleven eggs... and roughly two hundred days after that, eleven precious little tuatara hatched into this world. Go Mildred!
