One of the world's most popular pet lizards comes from the dry, rocky Indus River country of Pakistan; the first pets were probably shipped from Karachi in the 1960s. Unlike most geckos it can blink, but it has no sticky toe pads.
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📍 Iberian Peninsula
Merino sheep were developed in medieval Spain, which guarded the fine-wool breed as a monopoly: smuggling one out could mean death. Merinos only reached Australia in 1797, via South Africa.
📍 Galápagos Islands, Ecuador
Early Spanish explorers named the Galápagos Islands after these giants. The tortoises can weigh over 400 kg and live for more than 100 years, and their differences from island to island fed Charles Darwin's thinking when he visited in 1835.
📍 Inland Australia
Wild budgies live across the dry interior of Australia, and every wild one is green and yellow. The blue, white and yellow pets are colour forms bred in captivity, where budgies have been raised since the 1850s.
📍 Eastern China (Shanghai–Wuhan)
Gung ho is Chinese gōnghé, short for 'industrial cooperative', the name of a 1930s movement in China. US Marine officer Evans Carlson took it to mean 'work together' and made it his battalion's motto.
📍 Memuro, Hokkaido, Japan
Gateball was dreamed up in 1947 in Memuro, Hokkaido, by Eiji Suzuki, who handmade sticks and balls so children short of toys after the war could play a croquet-like game. It later became a favourite of older people.
📍 Southern India
Curry comes from kari, a word for spiced sauce in Tamil and neighbouring South Indian languages. Portuguese traders made it caril, and English picked it up from them in the 1590s.