(Source: Yangmingshan National Park Headquarters)

Chinese Cobra

The Chinese cobra, or rice-spoon head, is a large-sized snake that grows to about 1.2 m length on average and about 2 m maximum. It has a dark-coffee back, a rather white abdomen, and a black and white band on the head like spectacles. Therefore, it is called the spectacle snake in Chinese. Being frightened or vexed, it will raise its body straight up, looking like a rice spoon, and gives out hissing sounds.

The species is often found in Thailand, south China, east Vietnam and on Taiwan Island. They live on the mountainside, farmland or cultivated land, and are occasionally seen on Yangmingshan. They are diurnal animals but prefer to go out in the evening when the weather is hot. They lay about 7-25 eggs each breeding cycles in summer. It takes about 1.5-2 months to hatch the eggs. The baby snakes are about 20cm long. A mother Chinese cobra habitually protects her eggs.

The Chinese cobra has an oval head but no pit. It has a pair of fine grooved teeth about 1-3cm long. Teeth marks are difficult to see on the wound. Though its venom is neurotoxic, it contains only 20% neurotoxins, and the rest are cardiotoxins. As these cardiotoxins are cytotoxins, victims feel extremely pain, the wound swells and necrosis complicates. Though its venom is weaker than that of the many-banded krait, the amount is huge so one should not overlook its severity. Though it is the number four human attacker in Taiwan, it is only the number three human killer. The mortality rate of victims is around 10%.