goanna noun: (in Tasmanian use) the blue-tongue lizard Tiliqua nigrolutea.
Most of us are familiar with goannas, a group of reptiles of the genus Varanus that includes the largest lizards in Australia—some more than two metres long. The term goanna is an Australian alteration of iguana, a large tropical lizard.
Recently we were alerted to a different usage of goanna on Tasmania’s Flinders Island. Some island residents use the word goanna for the local species of blue-tongue lizard, which is usually no more than 50 cm in length. Our informant wondered if this meaning was unique to Flinders Island, or if it extended to the Tasmanian mainland too.
Although recent evidence is hard to find, our research shows that the word goanna was indeed used elsewhere in Tasmania to refer to blue-tongues:
When we had finished we wandered down to the river, where a fat goanna suddenly sidled up from the undergrowth, poking his blue tongue out at us. (Burnie Advocate, 17 March 1941)
Some evidence comments explicitly on the local usage:
There are, of course no true goannas in Tasmania. The creature referred to as the ‘goanna’ here is the blue-tongued lizard. It is the largest of our four-legged reptiles, and is harmless. (Hobart Mercury, 3 January 1953)
The Tasmanian terminology mirrors a similar use of goanna in mainland Australia, especially evident in the first half of the 20th century. In his 1898 dictionary, Austral English, E.E. Morris says in the entry for ‘Goanna, Guana, and Guano’ that ‘throughout Australia any lizard of a large size is popularly called a Guana, or in the bush, more commonly, a Goanna’. A nature column in the Melbourne Argus (7 April 1928) notes that Tasmanians ‘call the blue tongue a “goanna”, but that is also the custom in many parts of Victoria’. And in the following item, Western Australian motorists are urged to take care in spring when the blue-tongues are sunning themselves:
Save The Goanna. Motorists Note! This is the season when the blue-tongued sleepy goanna ambles forth in search of food and sunshine. Frequently he slumbers in the warm sand of the road and bush track, and it is here that passing vehicles cause his destruction. (Perth Daily News, 23 October 1928)
Goanna is also used from the late 19th century in the name bobtail goanna. It refers to a particular species of southern blue-tongue lizard, Tiliqua rugosa. Today it is more commonly called a bobtail (or bobtail lizard, or bobtail skink), but bobtail goanna is still used, especially in the west:
Local artist Tom De Munk Kerkmeer has been working at Avon Fibretech on a bobtail goanna wood carving which will be placed on Broome Terrace near the swinging bridge. (Avon Valley Advocate, 10 June 2015)
Why was the name goanna transferred from the large, fast-moving, long-tailed Varanus species to the smaller, sluggish, short-tailed blue-tongue? It is likely that goanna’s transferred meaning broadly indicates ‘goanna-like’, in the sense that the lizards referred to are bigger than average; E.E. Morris’ comment above suggests the same. In Tasmania this may have particular significance. The Tasmanian species of blue-tongue is the largest lizard in the state, and naming it goanna acknowledges its superior size in the local environment.
This sense of the word goanna will be considered for inclusion in the next edition of the Australian National Dictionary.
Image by Rae Wallis from Pixabay
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