![](https://www.wjbc.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/389/2023/08/snake.jpg)
By WMBD-TV
BLOOMINGTON – A professor at Illinois Wesleyan University has discovered a new species of snake. Dr. Edgar Lehr has named the species after Harrison Ford.
He thought it would be funny since Harrison Ford’s character Indiana Jones is afraid of snakes. It also honors Ford’s work with conservation issues.
The biology professor discovered the Harrison Ford Slender Snake, Tachymenoides harrisonfordi, in May 2022 during a trip to the Otishi National Park in Peru. Lehr has been visiting and conducting research in Peru since 1997 and has collaboratively discovered 104 new species. All 92 of the amphibians are frogs and out of the 12 reptiles 3 are snakes and 9 are lizards.
During his 2022 trip, Lehr also discovered a frog and a lizard. The lizard, Proctoporus titans or Titans Spectacled Lizard, is named in honor of IWU’s titan mascot. The frog’s name has not been published yet.
The biologist said he names species after celebrities to bring awareness.
“It helps to create awareness. Not only to honor Harrison Ford for his activities but also to give awareness and attention to the new species, inviting biologists to do research to find new species and describe them so we can hopefully protect them from becoming extinct,” he said.