Sri Lankan Lizards: kabaragoyas & Thalagoyas
The concise guide to the Anglo-Sri Lankan lexicon
by Richard Boyle Part XII
The concise guide to the Anglo-Sri Lankan lexicon
by Richard Boyle Part XII
Apart from the snakes already examined, there are the names for two lizards and a terrapin among the reptiles associated with Sri Lanka recorded in the second editions of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED2) and Hobson-Jobson (H-J2). The inclusion of kabaragoya is to be expected, for this name is applied to one of the most awesome lizards in the world. On the other hand, the inclusion of knob-nosed lizard (better known as the "hump-nosed lizard". a species endemic to Sri Lanka) is more surprising. Thalagoya, the name for another largish lizard species often employed together with kabaragoya, is likely to be included in OED3. Date of first use is provided in brackets.Ceylonese terrapin (1896). Sinhala gal ibba. In the entry for terrapin in the OED2 it is
explained: "The catalogue of Animals in the London Zoological Gardens, 1896, contains thirty-three species of Terrapin, with distinctive appellations, such as . . . Ceylonese . . ." This name was applied to the species now known as The Hard Terrapin or Common Terrapin, Melanochelys trijuga.
