Harrison Ford THERE earned the right to be curmudgeonly-But the 81-year-old star of so many iconic films known for controlling his grief with subtle humor and heart. That came through 100 percent in a statement he shared after scientists discovered a new species of snake in Peru’s Otishi National Park and named it Tachymenoides harrisonfordi is a species of flowering plant.
“The snake has eyes you can drown in, and he spends most of the day warming himself in a pool of dirty water – we might have been friends in the early ’60s,” the Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny star said in a statement to Conservation International (through People), where the actor serves as vice-chairman. “In all seriousness, this discovery is humbling. It’s a reminder that there is so much more to be learned about our wild world—and that humans are a small part of an impossibly vast biosphere. On this planet, all destinies are intertwined, and today, a million species teeter on the brink of oblivion. We have an existential mandate to repair our broken relationship with nature and protect the places that sustain life.
According to Conservation International, the discovery was made by a team from the US and Peru led by Illinois Wesleyan University biology professor Edgar Lehr; the name came about because of Ford’s “decades-long environmental advocacy.” While the snake (“pale, yellowish-brown with scattered black spots, a black belly, and a vertical streak in its copper-colored eye”) fits the theme because of its well-known association -with them in Indiana Jones, Ford also has a spider (Calponia harrisonfordi) and an ant named after him (Pheidole harrisonfordi).
Want more io9 news? Check when to expect the latest wonders, Star Warsand Star Trek releases, what’s next for DC Universe in film and TVand everything you need to know about the future of Who is the doctor?.
