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WORLD✒ EDITORIALABSURDITY:
New nocturnal snake from New Guinea named after Slash of Guns N’ Roses
Filed 1h ago · Via Mongabay · The Buffoon Desk
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Divertissement - Pizzicato (from the ballet Sylvia)
Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0
Photo: Number 10 · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
Researchers have formally described Lielaphis slashi, a reddish-brown nocturnal groundsnake from Papua New Guinea's Sandaun Province, naming it for Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash in recognition of his advocacy for snakes, zoos, and museums. Study co-author Christopher Austin first collected the specimens in 2006 but initially misidentified them as an already-known species; genetic and scale analysis two decades later confirmed it as the twentieth known species in its genus.
Slash called the honor exciting and humbling in a press release. Researchers note the species' New Guinea habitat faces threats from coffee farming, mining, and timber harvesting, which is part of why they say naming and describing such species matters.
The full dispatch is available from the source below.
✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK
A rock guitarist gets a snake named after him and somehow that's the tidiest part of this story, since the actual specimen sat mislabeled in a drawer for twenty years before anybody looked closely enough to notice it was new. That's not a knock on the scientists, just a reminder of how much of the world's supposedly cataloged wildlife is really just a best guess filed under the wrong name. The mining and coffee plantations closing in on its forest won't wait for the paperwork to catch up.
Source: Read the original at Mongabay →Scored: Divertissement - Pizzicato (from the ballet Sylvia) · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0
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