Harrison Ford Has A Snake Named After Him IRL & His Response Is Pure Indiana Jones

Harrison Ford has had a newly-discovered species of snake named after him, and his response is perfectly in line with his famously ophidiophobic adventurer, Indiana Jones. The new species, Tachymenoides harrisonfordi, is a Slender Snake about 16 inches long, according to Conservation International. It was discovered in the Andes Mountains of Peru, and researchers say the Ford-inspired designation is to celebrate the actor's decades-long work advocating for conservationism. Ford, the vice chair of Conservation International, responded to the news with a quip characteristic of his snake-adverse archaeologist.

"These scientists keep naming critters after me, but it's always the ones that terrify children. I don't understand," Ford said. "I spend my free time cross-stitching. I sing lullabies to my basil plants, so they won't fear the night." Putting jokes aside, Ford continued, "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."

But Ford isn't joking when he says it's often the more skin-crawling creatures that bear his name. Before this latest finding, he'd already had a species of ant — Pheidole harrisonfordi — and spider — Calponia harrisonfordi — named in his honor. Tachymenoides harrisonfordi is now the first reptile named for the 81-year-old actor.

One of the first things we learn about Indiana Jones is that he's terrified of snakes. In the opening scenes of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," Indiana is mostly stoic and collected as he dodges deadly obstacles in a booby-trap-filled temple. Moments later, however, he is completely freaking out when he realizes his pilot, Jock, brought his pet snake along for the escape flight. Along with his signature fedora and bullwhip combo, Jones' fear of snakes is one of the character's defining features, but viewers wouldn't learn where that phobia came from until the franchise's third installment.

The opening action setpiece of 1989's "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" serves almost as a speedrun of Indy origins. The sequence, which sees River Phoenix playing a young Indy, not only introduces the whip and fedora, it even offers a canonical explanation for Harrison Ford's real-life chin scar. It also shows us where Indiana's snake trauma stems from. During a thrilling chase scene on a speeding circus train, Indy falls into a snake pit, and his resulting fear of snakes has stayed with the character for decades. 

Though Ford continues to advocate for conservation efforts and environmentalism, this latest development is one where he may have had the same thought as Indy once did: "Snakes ... why did it have to be snakes?"