The first detailed scientific description was made by Tasmania's Deputy Surveyor-General, George Harris, in 1808, five years after first European settlement of the island. Harris originally placed the thylacine in the genus "Didelphis", which had been created by Linnaeus for the American opossums, describing it as "Didelphis cynocephala", the "dog-headed opossum". Recognition that the Australian marsupials were fundamentally different from the known mammal genera led to the establishment of the modern classification scheme, and in 1796, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire created the genus "Dasyurus" where he placed the thylacine in 1810. To resolve the mixture of Greek and Latin nomenclature, the species name was altered to "cynocephalus". In 1824, it was separated out into its own genus, "Thylacinus", by Temminck. The common name derives directly from the genus name, originally from the Greek θύλακος ("thýlakos"), meaning "pouch" or "sack".