Indiana Jones faced a lot of difficult challenges during his career as an adventuring archaeologists, from outrunning rolling boulders to frequently fighting Nazis. However, whenever a snake reared its head, that was enough to send Indy into a panic, as he feared those reptiles just as much as his father feared rats. So you have to love the irony of a snake species being named after his actor, and Harrison Ford has now reacted to the big news that Indy would surely hate.
As reported by the scientific journal Salamandra, a type of slender snake that was discovered in Peru’s Andes Mountain back in May 2022, when researchers found one of the males hanging out in the sun. This species has now been classified as Tachymenoides harrisonfordi, and its physical attributes include being 16 inches long, colored yellowish-brown with scattered black blotches, and having a black belly and a vertical streak over his copper-colored eye. When asked for comment from EW, Ford started by joking about how this is the latest unsettling animal to be named after him, then delivered a heartfelt statement about the natural world:
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. 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 two Harrison Ford-named animal species to precede Tachymenoides harrisonfordi were Pheidole harrisonfordi, a type of ant, and Alponia harrisonfordi, a type of spider. In other words, as the Han Solo actor noted, the animals named after him are more than likely to freak children out… and frankly many adults too. Still, it’s clear from his above words that Ford is pleased with this honor, though he used the news as a platform to saying some poignant words about nature and humanity’s duty to care for it. Speaking of which, this snake wasn’t just named after Ford because of Indiana Jones’ dislike of snakes; the man himself has long been dedicated to conservation, which includes him serving as the vice chair of Conservation International’s board of directors.
This update on the snake world comes roughly a month and a half after the release of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which marks the end of the film series and Harrison Ford’s tenure as the character. Critically, the movie’s been met with more mixed reception, with CinemaBlend’s review being one of the more positives ones with a 4 out of 5 stars rating. Commercially though, Dial of Destiny has failed to make a splash, having made only $375 million worldwide off a budget reportedly in the $295-300 million range. So the cinematic Indiana Jones saga didn’t exactly go out on a bang, but at least the announcement of Tachymenoides harrisonfordi makes a nice personal prize for Ford to enjoy.
The first four Indiana Jones movies can be streamed with either a Disney+ subscription or a Paramount+ subscription, and Dial of Destiny will likely end up on the former service before the year is over. Look through our 2023 release schedule to see what movies are coming out in the months ahead, or get a jump on next year with the 2024 release schedule.
