From “Iconic New Zealand Reptile Shows Chewing Is Not Just for Mammals” (ScienceDaily, May 29, 2012), we learn,
The tuatara, an iconic New Zealand reptile, chews its food in a way unlike any other animal on the planet — challenging the widespread perception that complex chewing ability is closely linked to high metabolism.
Using a sophisticated computer model, scientists from UCL and the University of Hull demonstrate how the tuatara is able to slice its food like a “steak knife.” The tuatara’s complex chewing technique raises doubts about the supposed link between chewing and high metabolism in mammals.
Save yourself useless mental work; just disbelieve everything you hear about Darwin’s Tree of Life.
See, for example, Forget the old tree of life. Here’s a new, improved tree for mammals, incorporating bursts, Sea creature, nearly 600 mya, wobbles current classifications of life, and Billion-year-old organism is not a fungus, alga, parasite, plant or animal …. Best of all, have a look at one new proposed tree, a circle.
Incidentally, in this case, the computer model is not an attempt to bypass reality:
“It allows us to investigate movements within skulls that would be impossible to monitor in a live animal without using harmful X-rays which is not an option for protected species like the tuatara.”