Super cobra in the making...

A few days back I went to a friend’s house but she was not home. So I was chatting with her mother. As the topic of snakes came along, she told me a very fascinating story.
2-3 years back, one morning one snake was spotted in their locality. There was a medium sized water tank with water and the snake was in it. When they identified it as cobra, they called a snake charmer. Even he could not catch the snake because of the water, so people decided to kill it. After beating the snake severely with sticks and rods, they put the snake on ground. And suddenly the cobra regurgitated another snake. And guess what, that was a cobra too. The first cobra was approx 4.5ft long and second one from 3-3.5ft.


Now this was interesting for me because I have not heard of cobras feeding on cobras or any other snake previously. So I started to look for material on this subject. King cobras and Kraits are known to feed on snakes but could not find anything related to cobras. Then suddenly I stumbled upon a image in an online group, Indian Snakes. It not only proved the previous story, the comments gave a whole array of information.


The photo was originally posted by Mr Rajeevan Shri in another group DiversityIndia. And this was the supporting text “While travelling through country side around Quilon found this. People beaten the cobra very badly it was dying when the pic was taken' cobra was about 5feet long &viper about 3.5feet long. Taken 1998 Dec.” Now when I went through the comments I saw that one person says that he has seen a cobra feeding on a daboia before and this is the second time he is seeing this. Another person says that he saw a cobra vomit a daboia before while his friend was rescuing the cobra. And one person added even more interesting fact. He has seen cobra feeding on rat snake and even a rat snake feeding on trinket snake.

These could be some very unusual individual incidents or these could be showing a trend. The snakes, especially the cobra may have started to change their feeding behaviour. An easy conclusion could be drawn that the scarcity of prey species have forced them to target different species but their main prey, the rats have flourished with the human very well and are not scarce. May be inter species competition is forcing the cobras to be superior than the daboia and feed on that species. Well, these are just my imagination and the real reason could only be found by scientifically investigating the whole matter.

unsolved puzzle in winter

December, January being the winter months, I thought that I can go into hibernation. There will be no-more posting in the blog as it is mainly a reptile related blog. And everyone knows that reptiles go into hibernation in winter. Reptiles can not regulate their body heat, their body temperature changes with ambient temperature. So, when the ambient temperature drops in winter they had to find a warm place and stay inside. Otherwise they will die in cold. Hibernation is a state of dormancy during which reptiles slow down their metabolic rate so that they don’t have to eat for the whole period of hibernation.


There are some exceptions in this trend. I have seen some particular snakes to remain active in winter time also. They are less active than the warmer time but they are still active. The snakes are Rat Snake and Checkered Keelback. The first one is a land snake and the second one is a water snake. Both are common snakes of this area. The common lizard found in our area i.e. Common Garden Lizard also remains active. Single garden lizard basking morning sunlight on a garden fence or at the end of a small brunch is a common sight. One other common household lizard i.e. Northern House Gecko stays active too. They seem to gather around lights in less number though. But I didn’t found any amphibian to stay active in this time.


But this year my observation seems to tell a different story altogether. I have first located a Common Bronzeback busking in sunlight in the morning on a brick wall. A few days later I saw a Common Toad to be out for the night’s hunt at around 10pm. Within a week, I got some information about killing of 4 Indian Cobra in a nearby paddy-field while the snakes were basking in the morning. Then I saw a Russell’s Viper to sun bask on a small bush beside a railtrack. I found an Indian Bullfrog that day evening. Literally it was out for hunting, frogs don’t wander around. The following days showed me Common Toads a few times again. Oneday when I was returning home at night around 9:30 pm, I found a fresh roadkill Olive Keelback snake. Generally I find them at the location in the rainy season, not in winter time. And the most crazy of them all happened just a few days ago. I found a few Skittering Frogs were calling for mating in a small water body. And they are still calling for the past few days.


The reptile and amphibian species that I have mentioned here are the main species around here. Their activity shows us what in general all the species are doing in here. Without any confusion we can draw a decision that the reptiles and amphibians of this area obviously have not gone to hibernation. It may be the change of weather or the pollution and all that which is creating this change. But what is the reason behind the mating call of the frogs?? There was no rain for the past 2 months and I have not heard mating calls from any other water bodies. So, what is causing the frogs of this particular water body to call for breeding??