Japanese crossword «Ba-gar-ra»

Good grief - I had to look it up and yet I've been in the environs a few times...

Ah - I tend to stop and start on puzzles so when I wrote my comment it looked like no one else had commented - anyway I believe it's the tortoise emblem of the Bargara region (great barrier reef Australia) ... but I could be wrong.

Found it after some research! It's a character from Alexander Volkov, from The Wizard of the Emerald City (Soviet version of the wizard of Oz). ба-гар-ра seems to be the maneater. I read the books as a kid and loved them, happy to be reminded of it!