Salazar Slytherin – the parseltongue wizard who talks with snakes in J.K. Rowling’s fantasy Harry Potter is not just a mystical character name of the Potterverse anymore! Now, its found a place in India’s biodiversity as a newly discovered pit viper from Arunachal Pradesh has been named after this character.
New research reveals that a unique Indian skink species arrived on the subcontinent by rafting across the ocean from Southeast Asia millions of years ago, a journey made possible by fluctuating sea levels.