How Sharp Are King Cobra Fangs?
After finding this dead neonate King Cobra (Ophiophagus hannah) on the road, we were fascinated to see how small the fangs were in the front of the upper jaw. We set out to answer the question…
JUST HOW SHARP ARE KING COBRA FANGS?
Juvenile King Cobra fangs are not just sharp, they are ULTRA SHARP.
After seeing with our own eyes how small the fangs appeared, we gently pulled the majestic King Cobra juvenile out of our ziplock baggie and went to work on the difficult task of photographing the fangs. We decided to focus on just one fang because the depth of field was just a couple of millimeters at that magnification (1:1).
FANG OBSERVATION EQUIPMENT
- Canon D60 with 100mm F/2.8 macro L-lens, external flash with diffuser box
- Ultra-thin sewing needle
- Petzl headlamps
- 30 minutes of patience
This recently hatched King Cobra – estimated age at less than 2 weeks, was found on a road just outside of town. I have never found one before of this size, though I’ve seen several larger dead-on-the-road kings in this area. We do seem to have a lot of King Cobras here – the local King Cobra show typically gets dozens each spring as they are found while out looking for mates.
Finally, here is an image showing just how sharp the King Cobra’s fang is about the point of the needle. Scary sharp!
You might be thinking, it’s a juvenile – it doesn’t have enough venom to do me any harm…
And you’d be wrong. This study (still trying to find it!), shows that the potency of King Cobra’s venom changes with time. When Kings are young, they have extremely potent venom, on par with that of the venomous kraits – some of the most toxic venom on the planet. As they get older, the toxicity decreases as the capacity to hold more volume in the venom sacs increases.
A young King Cobra bite can be potentially fatal, just like any other cobra in Thailand.
DO BE CAREFUL!!
DON’T EVER HANDLE VENOMOUS SNAKES!
©ThailandSnakes.com. Images by Elliot Pelling and used with permission. Special thanks to Elliot Pelling and Marc Littlewood for allowing us to do a little science on this juvenile DOR King Cobra.