This species epithet is derived from the Greek noun
ophis (ὄφῐς), genitive
opheos (ὄφεως). Under the recommendations for identifying the combining form of a Greek noun provided by
Oren et al. 2016, the ending -
eos should be removed, leaving the combining form
oph-. However, the combining form
ophi- with the connecting vowel -
o has been used traditionally throughout scientific verbiage (e.g. ophiology, the study of snakes;
Cyanophiothrix, the ICN validated genus within the
Cyanobacteriota;
Ophiophagus hannah, the king cobra). For this reason, we have chosen to retain
ophi- as the traditional combining form.