Tanzania Snake, Matilda’s Horned Viper Named After A 7-Year-Old Girl

The world’s newest snake has menacing-looking yellow and black scales, dull green eyes and two spiky horns. 

It is named Matilda’s Horned Viper in honor of the 7-year-old daughter of Tim Davenport, one in the three-person team that discovered the snake in a forest in southwest Tanzania.

Matilda’s Horned Viper was discovered in a small patch of southwest Tanzania about two years ago and was introduced last month as the world’s newest known snake species in an issue of Zootaxa.

Tim Davenport, the director of the Wildlife Conservation Society in Tanzania, was on the three-person team that discovered the viper. Thanks to his daughter, the snake will always carry a family namesake. “My daughter, who was five at the time, became fascinated by it and used to love spending time watching it and helping us look after it,” Davenport was quoted as saying. “We called it Matilda’s Viper at that stage… and then the name stuck.”

Only three new vipers have been discovered across Africa the last three decades, making the find rare and important. 

The exact location of where the snake was found was not revealed by 

Wildlife Conservation Society 

to protect it from hunters, reports said.

Davenport said he is not sure how many live in the wild because snake counts are hard to do. Twelve live in captivity and a breeding plan is being carried out.

Davenport, a Briton who has lived in Tanzania for 12 years, said that while many people fear snakes, most are harmless and help keep rodent numbers down. Matilda’s horned viper can grow to 2 feet (65 centimeters) or bigger, he said.

The Wildlife Conservation Society runs the Bronx Zoo and the Central Park Zoo in New York, and Davenport said it would be a “great option” to showcase the new horned viper at one of those locations, but that nothing has yet been decided.