A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Naja siamensis
An Indochinese spitting cobra, or black and white spitting cobra; at the Sedgwick County Zoo. I know what you're thinking, why upload a cobra spotting without the hood? But honestly stressing a snake out by tapping on the glass to get it to spread its hood seems cruel. This snake is nocturnal and is night and day (haha see what I did there) with its temperament. In daylight hours its timid and flees but at night will rear up and spit venom into your eyes. If that doesn't work it'll savagely bite you and not let go. Venom symptoms can be lethal and if the venom hits you in the eyes you will be met with immediate excruciating pain and possibly permanent blindness. They're also not the only cobra that can do this, when I googled "spitting cobra" i assumed it was one species, not seventeen or so? So that's a fun thought. Also, an interesting evolutionary trait is that they spit venom by contracting the muscles of their venom gland and shooting it out of the holes at the tips of their fangs. The hollow bits of their fangs are rifled for accuracy. Hundreds of thousands of years before mankind discovered rifling metal tubes made bullets go further, mother nature beat us to the punch. Glorious.
Native to Southeast Asia.
No Comments