At 111 Years Of Age, Henry The Tuatara Shocked His Keepers When He Became A First-Time Father

Back in 2009, the 111-year-old tuatara became a father for the first time. The triumph didn’t come easily, though. 

The aging reptile had reportedly gained a reputation for being "a grumpy old man" and was kept in solitary confinement because of his aggressive behavior. When staff at the museum first introduced him to a female called Mildred, he bit the end of her tail off – twice.

His indignant behavior continued, that was until he had a cancerous growth removed from near his genitals and his libido was miraculously restored.

After mating with Mildred, herself believed to be in her 70s at the time, an impressive 11 out of 12 eggs successfully hatched at Te Unua Museum of Southland (then known only as the Southland museum) in New Zealand.

Henry: international superstar

Thanks to his story of patience and personal transformation, Henry quickly became an international sensation following the birth of his offspring, attracting media attention from across the world.

In 2015, this even included the UK's Prince Harry who met him in Invercargill airport during an official visit to New Zealand. Henry even starred in an award-winning documentary, Love in Cold Blood, which "chronicles the turbulent, 'will-they-won't-they' relationship" with Mildred.

Tuatara are freaks

While Henry's story is exceptional, tuataras (Sphenodon punctatus) are no strangers to eccentricity. The animals can live for 137 years, making them one of the longest-living reptiles in the world. 

They are also one of the few reptiles in which the males don’t have penises. Instead, they have a cloaca-like vent that’s similar to the females. When it comes to mating, budding pairs will simply rub the two openings together and exchange sperm through a "cloacal kiss", in a similar fashion to most birds. 

To improve their chances of reproducing through this imprecise method of mating, the male's sperm are the fastest swimmers of any studied reptile and are three times longer than human sperm.

Despite appearances, they are not lizards – far from it. Instead, they are the sole survivors of an ancient reptile order called Rhynchocephalia, which split from the ancestors of lizards and snakes an extraordinary 250 million years ago. 

That means that, in terms of evolutionary time, humans are more closely related to kangaroos than tuataras are to lizards.

While Rhynchocephalians were once found all around the globe, the sole surviving tuatara evolved in isolation on New Zealand, the isolated island at the end of the world known for its strange expressions of natural selection. 

Oh, and they have a "third eye" on top of their head. Known as a parietal eye, it's equipped with a basic lens, retina, and nerve connections, although it's only able to register differences between light and dark, and can't sense fully formed images.

Henry's happy ending

Henry had been a resident of the Te Unua Museum of Southland since arriving in 1970. However, in 2024, he was relocated to a new enclosure along with the museum's other tuataras to the Queens Park Animal Reserve in Invercargill.

By all accounts, Henry is still alive and well, living peacefully alongside Mildred and his other romantic partner, Lucy, who is a spry 70 years old.

There is no Guinness World Record for being the eldest first-time father, but if there were, Henry wouldn’t win, unfortunately. The title would likely go to Goliath, a 134-year-old Galapagos tortoise, who welcomed his first hatchling in 2025.

However, given Henry’s current living arrangements though, there’s still time to sweep that record...