Getty Image / Ian Gavan
Actor Harrison Ford was humbled by having a newly discovered species of snake named in his honor, Tachymenoides harrisonfordi, from the Peruvian Andes mountains, and he had jokes about the new species discovery.
Harrison Ford has been racking up species names in his honor for years. He has previously had an ant named after him, Pheidole harrisonfordi, and a spider, Calponia harrisonfordi, now he has a snake to round out the trio.
Upon news of the Tachymenoides harrisonfordi discovery, most of the world had ‘snakes, why’d it have to be snakes?’ jokes. But looking back at the three species named in his honor, there’s clearly a trend and that didn’t go unnoticed by the Indiana Jones star.
Harrison Ford told THR “These scientists keep naming critters after me, but it’s always the ones that terrify children. I don’t understand. I spend my free time cross-stitching. I sing lullabies to my basil plants, so they won’t fear the night.”
The Hollywood legend added “In all seriousness, this discovery is humbling. It’s a reminder that there’s still so much to learn about our wild world — and that humans are one small part of an impossibly vast biosphere. On this planet, all fates are intertwined, and right now, one million species are teetering on the edge of oblivion. We have an existential mandate to mend our broken relationship with nature and protect the places that sustain life.”
The new species discovery was announced in Salamandra: German Journal of Herpetology. The expedition led biology professor Edgar Lehr at Illinois Wesleyan University to Peru’s Otishi National Park, which Conservation.org calls one of the ‘least explored grasslands on Earth’ because it is really only accessible via helicopter.
The professor says they were shadowed by narco-traffickers during their expedition. At one point, they heard the drug traffickers using their same radio frequency. On another day, he was awoken by a drone flying closely overhead to survey what they were doing and later that day they found fresh footprints in their camp.
After hearing a plane flying closely overheard they decided to call it quits and evacuate. But they had already discovered the new Harrison Ford snake species, a lizard, and some new landmarks according to Conservation.org.
Illinois Wesleyan shared their professor’s news on Instagram with a picture of the Harrison Ford snake:
The discovery of any new species is thrilling. Many biologists believe we are entering a new age of extinction with over 20% of all reptiles on earth facing extinction.
There have been 5 known ages of extinction, or mass extinction events, on our planet with the last coming roughly 65 million years ago.