monitors/goannas

[varanuskomodoen]

What is the difference between a goanna and a monitor lizard? Is it just the location (Goannas live in Austrailia)?



How do you pronounce goanna?

[skinheaddave]

Just different names for the same beast. It is more a case of Australians calling them goannas and others calling them monitors -- I've heard the komodo dragon refered to as the "largest of the goannas or monitor lizards."

As for pronounciation, it is like "go anna." Just pretend you're telling Anna to go -- but really fast.

Cheers,
Dave

[MistyDaze]

Yeah, that's right. Apparently it's just a corruption of the word Iguana that was given to these lizards by early settlers because they supposedly look like the true iguanas of the Americas.

Most Ozzies that keep herps refer to them as monitors.

[varanuskomodoen]

Oh, okay. Thanks. I was pretty sure, but not positive.

[SHvar]

Goanna is a slang term for monitor, yes because iguana means lizard, its Australian in origin. Leguaan is again a slang term of iguana from similar European settlers (Australia was a penal colony for Great Brittain at the time, and probably so South Africa).

[varanuskomodoen]

ok.

[Reptiles Galore]

it sounds like go-yana

[Brodie]

Yup I know about 50 or 60 other monitor keeps here and we all refer to them as Monitors, goanna is really just a word used by the general public.
CHeers

[mbayless]

I wish to differ with Shvar on his term "Leguaan": this is a corruption of a Boer-Africaans word used across Africa - its origin is not Australian, but as I said, Boer-Africaans. The term "Iguana" was first used in Jamaica during the later years of the slave trade upto about 1830, and as slave trade came from West Africa countries of Nigeria, Ghana, Benin, Senegal, and so on - the term was also used to apply to Varanus niloticus, V. ornatus but not V. exanthematicus (Edwards, 1784). The term "Goanna" is a slang term for monitor - not sure if it has a aborigine origin or not, probably English slaves brought from England to Australia 1700's.

cheers,
markb

[SHvar]

Leguan "the iguana", French-African term "the lizard", as to the origins I couldnt remember exactly. But I remember the European settlers having something to do with it. Thats something else when you cant remember where you read something, then it takes all night to find it. I just referred to goanna being an Australian slang term originally for "iguana" (lizard), like leguan from Africa.

[mbayless]

The french-African term for varanus is: "Gueule tapee", a corruption of of Gyedda = 'The Lizard' and has a pictorial of a short-snouted, blunt-nosed gyedda or Varanus exanthematicus.
Sometimes V. niloticus is called iguana of the morrocans and dakars, in reality of course Iguana comes from the Americas (Dekeyser & Villiers, 1951). I have amassed ~500 or so names, synonyms for African Varanus so far - and collect more each week....the Indonesian names are much fewer species specific, but as there are ~1000 dialects in PNG a hard job to find many of them written down - and Iguana is also used in PNG too, especially in former British New Guinea regions still, some 50 years after W.W. II.

In Australia there are anglo-saxon = Australian terms for Goannas and then aborigine names too, which I find more fascinating and much more descriptive - the trick being to find someone who can translate the aborigine names to english adjectives is the 'fun part'; ="Mungoon gali" = Megalania prisca the giant goanna = Mungoon gali = eater of men, and they did, or maybe still do!! (there are several independant reports on these animals existing in both Australia and PNG, in India, and Africa, the latter I believe a friend of mine and I have identified, and have a photograph of it too! - to be published when we get our thoughts, proof, have exact locality and habitat data too, etc. better together on paper)
Cheers,
markb

[Bighead]

Blah Blah Blah

All I know is Steve Irwin calls the Goannas so that's what they're called. ;)

[SHvar]

It makes for good TV. If you were hosting a show in the American southwest called "rattlesnake hunter" and you were from Texas you would probably speak with a thick Texan accent and use local dialect to make for good TV.
Read Steves article on breeding perenties, its written with little to no local dialect at all and he calls them monitors.

[mbayless]

I was/am just pointing out the local names used for each Varanus, and after all, wasn't that the question: Varanus, monitor vrs goanna?? Each has a different origin from different peoples....

cheers,
markb

[SHvar]

"Iguana", doesnt that just anoy you.
Oh well I always enjoy reading Marks responses and posts.
Hey Mark I want to see what you have available as papers and articles on Albigs, I like the locality article you sent me. Let me know how much and I send it, thanks.

Shawn

[mbayless]

HI Shawn,

Have on V. albigularis?? Hahaha - where do I begin?? I have ~500 author cards on V. albigularis alone - look through the locality paper under Albigularis, and the authors listed there just touch the tip of the iceberg...do you have a particular subject of main interest on albigularis?? That would narrow it down abit. I have written a very in-depth paper on "savanna monitor" taxonomy - so confusing it was rejected as the reader had to be very familiar with the taxon to understand the paper = too much meat and no potatoes in that paper, so I am rewriting it I think?
What interests me now about albigularis is their diversity hub = N. Kenya at Nile River tributary/origins where 'coincidentally' V. exanthematicus, V. niloticus also seem to split up - why there? When? Alot I do not understand yet...and the fun of figuring out the little things like that helps me understand their evolution across Africa....a 1919 paper on malaria says mosquitoes stopped progression of alot of animals in Africa from complete dispersion via malaria and death...interesting thought...and a few diseases blamed in albigularis that killed thousands of people blamed on alvigularis in 1913 - something else I want to track down to its validity - so much things, so little time, and not enough $$ to get this all done....

cheers,
markb