Snake named after Salazar Slytherin

Readers immersed in the universe of Harry Potter will recognize Salazar Slytherin as one of the four founders of Hogwarts and the originator of Slytherin House. He was a Parselmouth, an accomplished Legilimens, and a strong advocate of pure-blood supremacy.

According to Albus Dumbledore, Slytherin valued resourcefulness, determination, cunning, and ambition in his students. The Sorting Hat, however, also describes him as power-hungry. Among his known relics is a locket, which was later transformed into a Horcrux by Lord Voldemort.

More recently, a newly discovered species of pit viper has been named in both honour and dishonour of Salazar Slytherin.

Salazar’s pit viper (Trimeresurus salazar) is a species of venomous green pit viper first identified in the summer of 2019 in the Eastern Himalayas, specifically in the lowlands of western Arunachal Pradesh (India)[1]. It is characterized by a dark green, triangular, elongated head, and yellowish-green dorsal scales covering the rest of its body. The snake has a slender build and typically reaches a length of around 40 centimetres.

This species is sexually dichromatic, meaning males and females differ in colouration. Males display striking reddish-orange or yellow-orange stripes, along with a rusty red-orange tail, a feature that the females lack.

Salazar’s pit viper inhabits forested environments that are increasingly under threat from human development. Its diet consists of lizards, amphibians, birds, rodents, and other small mammals. Like many pit vipers, its venom is haemotoxic, destroying red blood cells, disrupting blood clotting, and causing tissue damage and organ degeneration.

Not the friendliest of namesakes, and certainly not the friendliest of snakes.

[1] Mirza et al: A new species of green pit vipers of the genus Trimeresurus Lacépède, 1804 (Reptilia, Serpentes, Viperidae) from western Arunachal Pradesh, India in Zoosystematics and Evolution – 2020. See here.