A group of Muggles researchers in India are clearly Snape fans because they’ve used him as inspiration to name a newly-discovered species of venous snake.
Instead of naming the viper after themselves, the researches went with Trimeresurus salazar, after Salazar Slytherin – one of the guys who literally founded Hogwarts.
Instead of naming the viper after themselves, the researches/Harry Potter dorks went with Trimeresurus salazar, after Salazar Slytherin – one of the Hogwarts founders in J.K. Rowling’s gangbusters series.
And as someone with even a smidge of HP knowledge could tell you, snakes are associated with Slytherin. The researchers discovered a new snake. Do you see where I’m going with this?
“The specific epithet is a noun in apposition for J.K. Rowling’s fictional Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry’s co-founder, Salazar Slytherin,” they wrote in their findings.
“He was a Parselmouth that links him to serpents.”
If the full name is too much of a tongue-twister, the researchers also suggested Salazar’s pit viper, for short.
Pit vipers from this genus are venomous and found all over Asia. This particular species is easily-identifiable by a reddish racing stripe which runs along the side of males.
The paper’s lead author, Zeeshan Mirza, said the finding “merely reflects the poor nature of biodiversity documentation across northeastern India.”
“Future dedicated surveys conducted across northeastern India will help document biodiversity, which is under threat from numerous development activities that include road widening, agriculture, and hydro-electric projects,” he wrote.
It’s an interesting snake with an interesting choice of name. Just as well they didn’t name it after He Who Must Not Be Named.
