King Cobra

Ophiophagus hannah

The world's largest venomous snake, the king cobra is agile and excitable and can inject a staggering quantity of venom into its victims.  King cobras defend themselves readily, hissing or growling like a dog and moving forward while maintaining the hooded threat posture.

Many a youngster's first impressions of the king cobra have probably been shaped by the swashbuckling accounts of animal collector-adventurer Frank Buck in his colorful 1930 autobiography, Bring 'Em Back Alive.

"The cobra alone," Buck wrote, "refuses to admit man is anything to worry about.  Cross his path anywhere at any time and he'll raise off the ground, stretch out his great hood and go for you.  There is a kind of horrible glamour about the unwillingness of this king of reptiles to make his peace with anyone or anything."

To illustrate, Buck recounted an incident in Singapore, where he was transferring a king cobra from a rickety cage into a new teakwood box.  When a young assistant stumbled and jarred the cage, the rotting bottom fell out, and suddenly a 12½-foot (3.75-m) snake ("the largest king cobra I had ever seen...latter proven to be the biggest in the world") fell onto the cement.  Buck jumped just as the snake struck, and it missed his leg "by only an inch or two."

He discovered he was trapped.

"I suffered more from plain ordinary fright at that moment than at any time in all my long career of adventure," Buck confessed.  "I didn't want to die this way.  It was not my notion of a decent death."

His solution was to peel off his white duck coat and hold it out the next time the snake lunged; he then threw himself onto the coat and snake and "screamed like a lunatic."  Eventually, a terrified Chinese boy came to his assistance, and together they twisted the coat around the snake's head and removed the serpent to its new quarters.

What a snake!  What a tale!  No wonder king cobras are featured attractions at zoos around the world.  And no wonder I felt nervous when the Nashville Zoo's curator of reptiles removed a king cobra from her cage for John Netherton to photograph, while I stood only a few feet behind.

I recalled Gadow's description of the king, published in 1901-"its size and very poisonous nature make it the curse of the jungle"- and remembered Buck's warning: "Nowhere in the world is there an animal or reptile that can quite match its unfailing determination to wipe out anything that crosses its path.  This lust to kill invests the king cobra with a quality of fiendishness that puts it in a class by itself, almost making of it a jungle synonym for death."

But the king cobra before us somehow lacked that air of fiendishness.  Nowhere near the world's record of 18 feet 4 inches (5.58 m), this shorter serpent, like its smaller Asiatic cobra relatives, didn't even have much of a hood.  It was rather drab looking, too: olive gray, with light cross-bands.

Curiously, it seemed to like being held by Dale McGinnity, the curator, although once it was placed on a table it immediately began to investigate its surroundings.  Intrigued by John's lighting stands, it tried to coil its body around some of his equipment; later, it wrapped itself around one leg of the table.  It also showed an interest in some nearby gecko cages.

Perhaps this snake was manifesting the celebrated "curiosity" or "intelligence" attributed to its species by many herpetologists.  Richardson asserts that "everybody who has had anything to do with hamadryads (king cobras) will tell you they are the most intelligent of all snakes."  Ditmars says individuals learn to detect the character of glass and avoid bumping their noses, and some appear to recognize their handlers, coming to the door of a cage, peering up or down, and watching for their keeper, while reacting antagonistically toward strangers.

But these serpents are dangerous, too.  The longest venomous snake in the world, the king cobra is a threat not only because of its body size and "insolent" disposition, but also because of its enormous venom glands.  This cobra can inject "a staggering amount of venom," says Richard Conniff, who surveyed leading authorities on animal toxins to determine the world's ten most venomous creatures.  In fact, king cobras in Thailand have reportedly killed work elephants after biting them where the toenail meets the skin of the foot.  King cobras have a penchant for hanging on and chewing, extending the period of envenomation; a cobra that bit a tea picker in India retained its grip on her leg for eight minutes.  She died twenty minutes after being bitten.

King cobras generally live in forests some distance from villages and cities in their native Asia, where their range extends from India through Vietnam into southern China and the Philippines; many bites are reported each year, however, perhaps because sandals worn by natives are less protective than high-top boots.

The king cobra is the only known snake species that constructs a nest for egg incubation.  First, the female loops her body around bamboo leaves and other decaying vegetation and drags the decaying vegetation to the nest site with her coils.  Then she hollows out two chambers in her pile of debris: one below, for the eggs, and one above, where she remains to guard the eggs.  The male cobra customarily remains nearby.  The female probably provides some warmth during the incubation process, though decomposing plant matter gives off heat as well.  Her eighteen to forty-three eggs hatch two to three months later.

Cobras guarding their nests can be more dangerous than those encountered during other seasons of the year.  An angered king cobra stretches the skin across its neck ribs into a hood, sways the upper part of its body, and makes a hissing sound that sounds like the growl of a small dog.  According to Hans-Gunther Petzold, this is the only cobra that can move its body forward while maintaining the threat posture.

The king cobra preys chiefly on nonvenomous snakes, including pythons, but will consume venomous kraits on occasion.  In captivity they have been known to resort to cannibalism.

As for that king cobra at the Nashville Zoo, did it hiss at its handler, spook photographer John Netherton with its threat posture?  

No.

In fact, it flared its hood only after it was returned safely to its exhibition area, where it turned back, out of curiosity, to observe us through the feeding door.

"Sorry," McGinnity apologized afterward, perhaps embarrassed that his king cobra had showed no inclination to sink its jaws into our flesh or flaunt its legendary aggressiveness.  "She's just so damn sweet."

As published in the book "Snakes" by David Badger and John Netherton

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