Coined by William Saville-Kent, assistant curator at the Natural History Museum in London, who wrote an account of the creature in his book The Great Barrier Reef of Australia (W.H. Allen, London, 1893) based on Miss Lovell's accounts. The name means roughly "Miss Lovell's tortoise-lizard". (Reference: Malcolm Smith, Bunyips and Bigfoots: In Search of Australia's Mystery Animals, Millenium Books, 1996, ISBN 1-86429-081-1.)