A New Snake From New Guinea Is Named After the Guitarist Slash

Researchers have named a newly identified snake from New Guinea after Slash, the guitarist from Guns N' Roses. ScienceDaily reports that the reddish-brown snake is called Lielaphis slashi, or Slash's groundsnake. Saul Hudson, who is known as Slash, has loved reptiles for almost his entire life and has spent a long time helping out museums, zoos, and natural history. He said he was extremely honored and humbled, and that he never imagined the moment would arrive.

The name has a personal story for Sara Ruane, associate curator of herpetology at the Field Museum and senior author of the paper in the journal Zootaxa. Guns N' Roses has been one of her favorite bands since first grade, and by fifth grade she had told her teacher she wanted to be a herpetologist, a scientist who studies reptiles. When she was twelve, she received an issue of Reptiles Magazine with Slash on the cover holding his pet reticulated python. Years later, as a scientist who sometimes names new species, she reread his interview, in which he talked about loving museums, zoos and natural history, and looking for snakes outside as a child. She thought he would be a great person to name a species after.

The snake is 28 inches long and was collected in the forests of New Guinea, the world's second-largest island, which lies just north of Australia and is shared by Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Its tropical forests hold huge biodiversity that is still poorly documented. In 2006, during night fieldwork, Chris Austin, a professor at Louisiana State University and co-author of the paper, found a snake he did not recognize. He said these groundsnakes are active at night and are usually found just after sunset at the base of large trees, where they look for food. He added that you must be careful at night in New Guinea, because there are several very venomous snakes that look similar to the harmless groundsnakes.

Ruane worked with Austin at the university in 2016. Genetic testing and physical differences confirmed that the snake is a species scientists had not formally recognized. It is not venomous, and large teeth at the back of its mouth may help it catch slippery lizards and reptile eggs.