Slash 'extremely honoured and humbled' after snake species is named after him

Slash is "extremely honoured and humbled" to have had a new breed of snake named after him.

Field Museum scientists discovered a groundsnake in New Guinea and have given the serpent the scientific name Lielaphis slashi, dubbed Slash's groundsnake, in recognition of the Guns N' Roses guitarist's lifelong love of the creatures.

Slash's groundsnake - which is dark brown with a tan underbelly - in non-venomous and doesn't pose a threat to humans.

Slash, 61, said in a statement: “As a long-time herpephile, I am extremely honoured and humbled to have Lielaphis slashi from New Guinea named after me.

“It is really exciting, I never would have imagined this moment would arrive.”

The Field Museum described the Slash's Snakepit supergroup founder as a “lifelong reptile lover and an avid supporter of zoos and museum", and one of the scientists who discovered the new snake shared her admiration for the Welcome to the Jungle rocker, which was heightened as a youngster when she realised how much he loves serpents.

Sara Ruane, the Field Museum’s Associate Curator of Herpetology and senior author of a paper in Zootaxa describing the new species, said in a statement: “Guns N’ Roses has been one of my favorite bands since I was in first grade, and by fifth grade, I had already told my teacher that I wanted to be a herpetologist-- a scientist who studies reptiles-- when I grew up.

“So when I was 12 years old and got my copy of Reptiles Magazine in the mail, and it had a picture of Slash holding his pet reticulated python on the cover, I thought, ‘This guy is so cool.'

“I reread his interview, and he talked about how much he loves museums and zoos and natural history, and about how when he was a kid, he’d go outside and look for snakes-- it was all stuff that I really related to, and it made me think that he’d be a great person to name a new species after."

Sara conducted the new study with research contributions from Tianqi Huang of Rutgers University, Chris Austin of the Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science, Justin Bernstein of the Slippery Rock University and the American Museum of Natural History, Bulisa Iova of the Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery, Jackson Roberts of the Virginia Museum of Natural History and Jeffrey Frederick of the University of Kentucky.