A newly discovered species of snake has been named after the lead guitarist, Slash, of Guns N’ Roses.
Lielaphis slashi, or Slash’s ground snake, was recently discovered and has been named in a research paper by the Field Museum of Natural History.
A well known herpetophile, reptile lover, Slash has he was “extremely honoured and humbled” to have the snake species named after him.
Dr Sara Ruane, Field Museum’s Associate Curator and a member of the team that discovered the new snake.
Originally identified in 2006 as part of a well known species, taxonomic revision saw that is was actually a distinct species.
“Snakes tend to be poorly represented in general with respect to how diverse they truly are,” she said. “What often happens is that people see snakes, they have similar appearances because they’re closely related to each other, and so they get lumped into the same species.”