Common Four-eyed Opossum

I don't think the explorers and sailors knew much about goannas (or iguanas for that matter), other than great-big-lizard. Goannas seem more similar to Tegus to me, but then I wasn't around then. ; )

Wow, hadn't heard that about how goannas got their name, very cool! Interesting that they were given a name similar to a group of herbivorous lizards instead of carnivorous monitors.

What a beautiful opossum. It's worth noting that Europeans first encounter opossums in the Americas, and the Australian possums are named after them. Likewise the name for our monitor lizards, 'goanna', is a bastardization of the word 'iguana'.