Suzanne Abou Said Daou

Little is known about the Himalayan biodiversity hotspot, but researchers from the National Centre for Biological Sciences and Bombay Natural History Society discovered a new pit viper snake in Arunachal Pradesh in India and named after the character Salazar Slytherin in JK Rowling's Harry Potter series. This new snake will be commonly known as Salazar's pit viper, but the scientific name is Trimeresurus Salazar.

The researchers  published their findings in the journal Zoosystematics and Evolution.

Salazar Slytherin is described as a Parselmouth, or one who can speak the language of snakes or Parseltongue. He is a co-founder of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and founder of the House of Slytherin, and the symbol of his Hogwarts house was a serpent, and is associated with the color green which is the color of this new species of viper snakes.

Salazar's pit vipers are mainly green and venomous and the males are distinguished an orange-reddish stripe running along their head and have more teeth than other pit vipers.