It was a no-brainer to name the next big snake at the Columbus Zoo after Jack Hanna – and that’s not to say anything about the character of the zoo’s emeritus director.
But it was such an easy connection that two people proposed the name “Hanna” at the same time on the zoo’s Facebook page in a contest to come up with a moniker for the daughter of Fluffy, the zoo’s late, famed python.
The results of the contest were announced yesterday.
The snake now called Hanna is a reticulated python and is smaller than her mother, who was the largest of her species before she died of an apparent tumor on Oct. 17. Fluffy was 24 feet long and weighed 300 pounds, which is 6 feet longer and 100 pounds heavier than her daughter.
But Fluffy’s offspring, brought to the zoo weeks after her mother’s death, is still growing.
“Fluffy’s size was kind of rare,” said zoo spokeswoman Patty Peters. “But it’s possible she could get that big.”
Reticulated pythons grow throughout their lives and typically reach 10 to 20 feet.
The naming contest began Nov. 30 and website visitors bombarded the zoo’s Facebook page with more than 1,000 posts suggesting names. The two winners posted the name “Hanna” a minute after the contest began. They received free zoo memberships after their entry won the most votes on a Facebook poll.
Hanna (the human one) said only two other animals had been named after him – a jackass and a giant rabbit – and that he was honored to be associated with Fluffy’s offspring.