It will never be known if a rat who was the main suspect in the murder of a tuatara at the Southland Museum and Art Gallery, was indeed the guilty party. The 31-year-old tuatara was found dead on July 14 by senior living species Lindsay Hazley during regular maintenance of the tuatarium. "We have captured a rat that was involved with the collection damage, and we haven’t found any more evidence of rats, either being in the tuatarium or the museum, so it could be the same rat," Mr Thompson said. ICC group manager environmental and planning, Darren Edwards said they had been advised by a pathologist there would be no value in testing the rat, due to decay. "The postmortem of the tuatara did confirm that the cause of death was a rodent attack," Mr Edwards said.

Source: Otago Daily Times September 04, 2020 16:18 UTC