When Europeans arrived in Australia, they were introduced to many species of animals that they hadn’t previously encountered. One Australian creature looked similar to the rats of Southern Asia, called ‘pandikokku’ in the Indian Telugu language, which roughly translates to ‘pig rat’. Europeans gave the Australian animal the same name. Over time, the word changed, and the small marsupial became known as the bandicoot.
As early as the 1820s, the word ‘bandicoot’ was used only in an indirect reference
