‘Sectumsempra’, the popular spell from the Harry Potter series, has been chosen as the name of a newly discovered species of ancient lizard.
Draco was left with severe injuries when the spell was used in the film Harry Potter and the half blood prince.
Rocks originally found near Bristol in the 1980’s had previously been left untouched until University of Bristol student Catherine Klein began work on them as part of a summer project.
Klein extracted thousands of fossils from the rocks before concluding the number of differences proved the existence of another species of lizard from the Clevosaurus family of lizards.
Klein explained: “The new species, Clevosaurus sectumsemper, probably lived near the edge of one of the ancient archipelago’s islands, in a relatively hostile environment”
‘Sectumsempra’, the spell created by Professor Snape in the books and films, is well known for being one of the most deadly in the series.
An artists impression of what the clevosaurus sectumsempra may have looked like.
It is most famously used in the 6th installment of the series, in which Harry Potter casts the spell on fellow student Draco Malfoy causing him to suffer severe cuts to his body.
The lizards ability to sharpen its “blade like teeth’ simply through eating encouraged Klein to use the spell as the name for the unusual creature.
“The species name sectumsempra means ‘always cut’, and was chosen to reflect this,” Klein said.