.jpg/2000px-Sand_Goanna_(15302642673).jpg)
Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Sand goanna
The sand goanna (Varanus gouldii), also known commonly as Gould's monitor, the racehorse goanna, and the sand monitor, is a species of large Australian monitor lizard in the family Varanidae.
John Edward Gray described the species in 1838 as Hydrosaurus gouldii, noting the source of the type specimen as "New Holland" and distinguishing the new varanid by "two yellow streaks on the sides of the neck" and small flat scales at the orbits.
An earlier description, Tupinambis endrachtensis Péron, F. 1807, was determined as likely to refer to this animal, but the epithet gouldii was conserved and a new specimen designated as the type. This neotype was obtained in 1997 at the near coastal Western Australian suburb of Karrakatta, and placed with the British Museum of Natural History. The decision of a nomenclatural commission (ICZN) was to issue an opinion suppressing the earlier name Tupinambis endrachtensis and the name Hydrosaurus ocellarius Blyth, 1868, that were unsatisfactory to some who had commented on the case, but provided taxonomic certainty for future revisions of the associated taxa.
The specific name, gouldii, is assumed to be a Latinised form of the surname of an associate of the describing author, the English ornithologist John Gould, who was actively assembling specimens of fauna from Australia but is not thought to have any direct connection to this species.
In some Aboriginal languages, the sand goanna is called bungarra, a term also commonly used by non-Aboriginal people in Western Australia. In Pitjantjatjara and other central Australian languages it is called "Tingka".
Two subspecies are recognised,
Nota bene: A trinomial authority in parentheses indicates that the subspecies was originally described in a genus other than Varanus.
The sand goanna belongs in the genus Varanus, consisting of monitors and goannas. Due to the taxonomic uncertainty during the twentieth century the species form and behaviour has included taxa later recognised as distinct species, such as V. rosenbergi, formerly treated as a subspecies and later elevated, and V. panoptes, described as a new species in 1980 and resolved as a legitimate publication in 2000.
Hub AI
Sand goanna AI simulator
(@Sand goanna_simulator)
Sand goanna
The sand goanna (Varanus gouldii), also known commonly as Gould's monitor, the racehorse goanna, and the sand monitor, is a species of large Australian monitor lizard in the family Varanidae.
John Edward Gray described the species in 1838 as Hydrosaurus gouldii, noting the source of the type specimen as "New Holland" and distinguishing the new varanid by "two yellow streaks on the sides of the neck" and small flat scales at the orbits.
An earlier description, Tupinambis endrachtensis Péron, F. 1807, was determined as likely to refer to this animal, but the epithet gouldii was conserved and a new specimen designated as the type. This neotype was obtained in 1997 at the near coastal Western Australian suburb of Karrakatta, and placed with the British Museum of Natural History. The decision of a nomenclatural commission (ICZN) was to issue an opinion suppressing the earlier name Tupinambis endrachtensis and the name Hydrosaurus ocellarius Blyth, 1868, that were unsatisfactory to some who had commented on the case, but provided taxonomic certainty for future revisions of the associated taxa.
The specific name, gouldii, is assumed to be a Latinised form of the surname of an associate of the describing author, the English ornithologist John Gould, who was actively assembling specimens of fauna from Australia but is not thought to have any direct connection to this species.
In some Aboriginal languages, the sand goanna is called bungarra, a term also commonly used by non-Aboriginal people in Western Australia. In Pitjantjatjara and other central Australian languages it is called "Tingka".
Two subspecies are recognised,
Nota bene: A trinomial authority in parentheses indicates that the subspecies was originally described in a genus other than Varanus.
The sand goanna belongs in the genus Varanus, consisting of monitors and goannas. Due to the taxonomic uncertainty during the twentieth century the species form and behaviour has included taxa later recognised as distinct species, such as V. rosenbergi, formerly treated as a subspecies and later elevated, and V. panoptes, described as a new species in 1980 and resolved as a legitimate publication in 2000.