Scientists name newly discovered snake after Salazar Slytherin

It seems like this team of scientists are big Harry Potter fans. They named the newly discovered species of the green pit vipers after Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of the Hogwars School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. 

Potterheads would know Slytherin as a snake whisperer of sorts; the emblem of his house is a snake, remember?

Photo by Aamod Zambre and Chintan Seth, Eaglenest Biodiversity Project

"The specific epithet is a noun in apposition for J.K. Rowling's fictional Hogwarts School Witchcraft and Wizardry's co-founder Salazar Slytherin. He was a Parsemouth that links him to serpents," reads a portion of the study published the Zoosystematics and Evolution journal.

Its scientific name is Trimeresurus salazar and its "suggested common name [is] Salazar's pit viper," it continued.

The new species "is described from the lowlands of western Arunachal Pradesh state of India."

In males, the new snake has "an orange to reddish stripe from the lower border of its eye to the posterior part of its head."

It's all very fascinating — apparently the pit vipers are super diverse and species are hard to distinguish, but we got caught up with the Potterhead scientists calling their new discovery Slytherin. How cool is that? — LA, GMA News