How to pronounce Australian animal names: echidna, quokka, kookaburra, koala and more (with audio)

The quick table: Aussie animal names and how to say them

The respellings follow how Australians say the words, and the clips back them up. The facts come from the Australian Museum, the Australian National Dictionary Centre, the Rottnest Island Authority, the Queensland Government and the Australian Koala Foundation.

Reading ih-KID-nuh gets you halfway. Saying it out loud gets you the rest. Have a yarn with Bruce.

Echidna: ih-KID-nuh

Echidna pronunciation catches nearly everyone the first time, because the ch looks like the ch in chip. It is not. It is a K.

Wrong: "etch-ID-nuh" or "eh-CHID-nuh", with the ch as in chip.

Local: "ih-KID-nuh". The first bit is short and soft, the weight sits on KID, and the end fades to uh.

Say it: "There is an echidna crossing the track up ahead."

Where the name comes from

Not from an Aboriginal language, which surprises people. It is Greek, probably from a mythical creature that was half woman, half snake. The animal is a monotreme, one of the few mammals that lays eggs: the female lays a single egg straight into a pouch. The Australian Museum has them living across Australia in all sorts of habitats.

Quokka: KWOK-uh

The selfie animal from Rottnest, and the name people get wrong on the ferry over.

Wrong: "KWOH-kuh", with a long O like oak.

Local: "KWOK-uh". Short O, as in lock, and the weight on KWOK.

Say it: "Is there a good spot to see quokkas near the settlement?"

The name comes from Noongar, the language of the south-west of WA. The Rottnest Island Authority writes it kwoka, and the Australian National Dictionary Centre has the English word first recorded in 1855. The quokka itself is a small, short-tailed wallaby, about the size of a cat, found in south-western WA, including Rottnest and Bald Islands.

Seeing quokkas on Rottnest

The island's name is the quokka's fault. Dutch visitors in the 1600s took them for large rats and called the place Rat's Nest, which stuck as Rottnest.

Watch from a distance, do not touch them, and let them find their own food. Feeding a quokka is illegal on Rottnest. The photo works better when the quokka comes to you anyway. The island's beaches are on the best beaches in Australia list.

Kookaburra: KOOK-uh-bah-ruh

The bird with the laugh, and a word with the same trap as Coogee: a double O that is not the long one.

Wrong: "KOO-kuh-bur-uh", with koo like cool and an American bur in the middle.

Local: "KOOK-uh-bah-ruh". The first bit rhymes with book and takes the weight, and the rest tumbles out quickly.

Say it: "That is a kookaburra, not a monkey. They start up at dawn."

The name comes from the Wiradjuri language of NSW, and the one you will hear most is the laughing kookaburra.

Koala, not koala bear

Two things to get right here, and the second matters more to Australians than the first.

Wrong: "koala bear".

Local: "koh-AH-luh", weight on AH. In quick chat plenty of Aussies run it together as kuh-WAH-luh. Both pass.

Say it: "Are the koalas awake, or is it nap time again?"

Why it is not a bear

Because it is not one. Koalas are marsupials: the young are born tiny and finish growing in a pouch. The Australian Koala Foundation says it is incorrect to call them koala bears. The correct name is simply koalas. They are more closely related to wombats and kangaroos than to any bear.

The word comes from Dharug, the language of the Sydney area, and is usually written gula. It is often said to mean "no water", but dictionary researchers have not confirmed that, so treat it as a story rather than a fact. The name was originally two syllables, spelt coola or koolah by early settlers, and the three-syllable version may have come from the later spelling.

Platypus: PLAT-ih-puss

Wrong: the plural, mostly. "Platypi" sounds clever and is not standard.

Local: "PLAT-ih-puss", weight on PLAT. More than one are platypuses, which is what the dictionaries list. You will hear platypus used as a plural too, and nobody minds.

Say it: "The platypus enclosure is dark, so give your eyes a minute."

The name is Greek for flat-footed. Like the echidna it is a monotreme: it lays eggs, one to three of them and usually two, according to the Australian Museum.

More names people trip on

Wombat: WOM-bat

Easy one. WOM-bat, weight up front, O as in pom. Another Dharug word: the first person to write it down, in 1798, spelt it Whom-batt.

Dingo: DING-goh

DING-goh, hard G in the middle. Dharug again, from din-gu, and first written down by Watkin Tench in 1789. More than one are dingoes, with an E.

Wallaby: WOL-uh-bee

WOL-uh-bee, weight on WOL, with a short O. From Dharug walabi or waliba. A quokka is a kind of wallaby, which explains a lot about the quokka.

Emu: EE-myoo

Australians say EE-myoo (you may hear EM-yoo elsewhere). Two syllables, weight on the first, and the second rhymes with you. Probably from Portuguese ema, though the origin is not certain. It is on the coat of arms opposite the kangaroo.

Cassowary: KASS-uh-wair-ee

KASS-uh-wair-ee, four syllables, weight on KASS. From Malay kesuari. This is the big rainforest bird of North Queensland, and the one animal on this page with a safety note: never feed one, and never approach one, especially a male with chicks. If one walks towards you, the Queensland Government's advice is to stay calm, face it, never turn your back, and back away slowly.

Numbat: NUM-bat

NUM-bat, rhymes with come back without the ck. From the Noongar language of south-west WA, which is also where you would see one. It is Western Australia's animal emblem, and it eats termites.

Quoll: KWOL

KWOL, one syllable, rhymes with doll. You will hear KWOHL from some people. The word is from Guugu Yimithirr, an Aboriginal language of north-eastern Queensland, and Joseph Banks wrote it down in 1770. Quolls are cat-sized, spotted and nocturnal, so a sanctuary is your best chance.

Bilby: BIL-bee

BIL-bee, weight on BIL. From Yuwaalaraay and neighbouring languages of northern NSW. It is also a dalgyte in WA and a pinky in SA, the same state-by-state habit as togs and bathers. Since the early 1990s there have been attempts to swap the Easter bunny for an Easter bilby, and the chocolate ones are real.

Galah: guh-LAH

guh-LAH, weight on the end. Yuwaalaraay again. It is the grey-backed, pink-breasted cockatoo you will see across most of Australia, and since the 1930s it has also been a word for a fool. That sense is in the slang dictionary.

Budgerigar: BUJ-uh-ree-gah

BUJ-uh-ree-gah, weight on BUJ, no R sound at the end. Nobody says the whole word. It is a budgie, BUJ-ee. The name probably comes from the Gamilaraay (Kamilaroi) language of NSW, though the exact origin is debated. The popular story that it means "good bird" or "good eating" is a myth that dictionary researchers discounted a long time ago. The other budgie is in the dictionary too, under budgie smugglers.

Names that come from Aboriginal languages

Most of the names on this page came into English from the languages of the peoples who have lived here for tens of thousands of years. Settlers wrote down what they heard, the spelling stuck, and the words travelled. This table only names a language where a dictionary source confirms it.

The rest are imports. Echidna and platypus are Greek, cassowary is Malay, and emu is probably Portuguese.

The meanings you will see repeated online, like koala meaning "no water" or budgerigar meaning "good bird", are mostly guesses that got passed around. Say the names properly, and do not trust a meaning unless someone can show you where it came from.

Questions about Australian animal names