Daily Mail

Are you my friend David Cam-eleon?

- Mail Foreign Service

POLITICIAN­S are sometimes accused of being cold-blooded. So perhaps Boris Johnson was looking for a few tips when he met this bizarre reptile during a trip to New Zealand. The Foreign Secretary handled the native tuatara during a visit to the Zealandia eco-sanctuary near Wellington. The creature, whose name means ‘peaks on the back’ in Maori, can live to be more than 100 years old, and, like the political class, the reptile is known to cannibalis­e other members of its species. Cradling it, Mr Johnson said: ‘It’s absolutely beautiful.’ He later headed for Australia as part of a nine-day internatio­nal tour.

 ??  ?? Thick skins: Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson gets to grips with the reptile during his trip to New Zealand
Thick skins: Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson gets to grips with the reptile during his trip to New Zealand

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