King cobra is also known as "crossing the mountain peak", flat-headed wind and mountain snakes. Although its name is very close to "Cobra", its cobra is far from each other and belongs to the genus King Cobra, while the cobra belongs to the genus Cobra.

Cobra is a large snake, which is the longest among all poisonous snakes. The largest one in China has reached 3.8m, and there is a record of 5.5m abroad. So far, it has not encountered a king cobra with a length of 1m.

toxicity of king cobra

king cobra is very fierce. Unlike other snakes, their main food is snakes, so it is difficult to see other snakes around its territory.

The king cobra's food list includes other poisonous snakes, including cobra, golden ring snake, silver ring snake, etc., and sometimes even its own kind. Although these poisonous snakes are very toxic, King cobra contains anti-venom in its body. Even if they are bitten by other poisonous snakes, they will not die of poisoning, so King cobra is also called "snake malefic".

The fangs of King cobra are connected with venom glands, which contain a certain amount of venom, which mainly contains neurotoxins and some cardiotoxins. The venom of king cobra is not as strong as that of bungarus multicinctus, but the venom of king cobra is very large, with an average of 2-5 mg, while the lethal dose of adults is 12 mg. The venom that King cobra can inject in one bite can poison an adult Asian elephant within three hours.

The venom of the eye viper can destroy the central nervous system of the poisoned person, causing the other person to have visual impairment, dizziness and other symptoms. In severe cases, he will go into shock, his heart will weaken and he will die. In rare cases, some poisoned people will have renal failure.

If you meet King cobra in the wild, you'd better not provoke them. Once bitten, you should be sent to the hospital for injection of anti-venom in time to prevent King cobra venom from further damaging your body function.

king cobra's predation

king cobras are very clever. They adopt different predation strategies in the face of different predators. King cobra can tell whether its prey is poisonous or not. If they belong to non-poisonous snakes, they will not use venom easily, but will observe each other, wait for the right opportunity to bite and hold on firmly. When the prey gives up the struggle, it will not let go, and then eat slowly.

When encountering poisonous snakes, King cobra will not confront them, but constantly provoke them, wait until the other side attacks itself, then flexibly avoid them, and then provoke them. When the other party is exhausted, the king cobra will find a good opportunity to bite the other party and inject venom. After the prey dies, the king cobra will eat slowly.

King cobras don't attack humans easily. They only attack humans when humans break into their nests or when they are incubating. Therefore, if you walk in the wild, you'd better bring a wooden stick, knock on the ground while walking, and tell the snakes "I'm coming", so most snakes will avoid it.

King cobra is not widely distributed in China. It is only distributed in South China, Hainan, Southwest China and other areas, and usually inhabits grasslands or forests.

reproduction of king cobra

Although king cobra is a poisonous snake and lives on other snakes, it is strange that when king cobra competes with other males for mating rights during mating, it will only knock them down and will not kill them with toxins. The winning male will win the favor of the female, and then the female will mate with them.

King cobra is an oviparous creature. It lays eggs two months after mating, and each time it lays about 2-4 eggs, it takes 6-8 days to hatch. During this time, the female snake will always guard the nest to prevent the snake eggs from being approached by other animals. Sometimes the king cobra will warm itself up by sunbathing, and then return to the nest to transfer its heat to the snake eggs.

When the baby snake comes out of its shell, the king cobra will instinctively leave the nest to prevent itself from eating the baby snake. This is very rare among snakes, and other females will protect their young snakes until they are viable.

However, the newborn king cobra has the same deadly venom as its parents, which also makes them have certain self-protection ability.

Summary

At present, due to human activities and the decrease of wild animals, the number of king cobras is declining. Although king cobras are cultured in some snake factories, the number of king cobras in the wild environment is decreasing. For various reasons, King cobra has not been listed as a national key protected wild animal for a long time in the past, and only Yunnan Province has listed it as a Class II rare protected animal.

In the IUCN Red List, the king cobra belongs to a vulnerable creature, but its living situation has not attracted enough attention.