Hypnotizing cobras

Cobras are one of the most poisonous snakes we will meet on our trip. They are easy to recognize when they flatten their rib cage and look like a long-handled tennis racket with fangs. When people think of cobras in India, they often think of snake charmers, the flute players who cause a snake in a basket to rise and sway to the music. Actually the snakes don't move to the music. When I was in Africa a friend caught a cobra and then demonstrated how the snake would sway just as readily to the movement of a stick. It's the motion of the flute moving back and forth that mesmerizes the cobra. I've been told that as long as you keep an object, like a flute, moving in front of a cobra, they delay or strike ineffectively. But once you stop moving, the snake may take aim and bite. We will check this out when we visit with a snake charmer during our journey.

One big snake

The king cobra (Ophiophagus hannah) is the longest venomous snake in the world. It can grow up to 16 feet long (4.88 m). When threatened it rises to 5 feet (1.5 m). This would be pretty scary if you were facing the snake. Fortunately, this cobra rarely attempts to bite people. In fact it shuns human contact. Of the 10,000 deaths every year in India due to snake bite, only a small percentage are caused by cobras. The king cobra spends much of its time hunting other snakes.