National Geographic: King Cobra (1997)

[bunniefuu]

Deep within the jungles

of southern India,

there lives a legendary king

respected and feared by all.

He is swift and strong and deadly.

He is the largest

venomous snake in the world.

But until now his life

has been a mystery.

This is the story of a monarch

and his remarkable travels

through a fragile kingdom.

It is early on a cool morning

when the king of snakes

embarks on a journey.

His is an ancient forest

alive with creatures great and small.

Like the king cobra himself

many hover precariously

close to extinction.

But on this morning

the jungle pulses with the

sounds of insects and birds.

A great Indian hornbill delicately

feeds his family

hidden in their nest below.

Through this jungle book world

the king roams great distances.

Though his movements are quiet

those around always take notice

for crossing the king cobra's path

could cost them their lives.

Despite the uproar his presence causes

his world is mostly silent.

He only hears the deepest of rumblings

He has picked up the heavy footfalls

of a nearby elephant.

Even the mighty pachyderm steers

clear of this serpent,

for just one bite may bring death.

But the king would strike such

a beast only in self-defense,

for he feeds solely on snakes.

Still, the langurs are cautious.

Today, the king is not interested

even in snakes.

He is searching for something else,

something very important.

His eyesight is better

than most serpents'

but he sees without color and

only registers objects when they move.

He smells the air with his tongue.

So acute is this sense,

he can use it to find water.

And that's exactly

what he's looking for.

Today, water is critical for the king

is about to shed his skin.

He needs extra fluid to help

separate his old coat from his new.

It is an uncomfortable time

for the king cobra,

a new skin is developing

beneath his outer scales.

He must find a place to hide

until it is time to shed.

The king is unaccustomed

to his fragile condition.

It is an uncertain time.

At last he discovers a burrow.

And none of the forest's creatures

wants to share quarters with the king.

For the next ten days,

he will stay here.

Irritable and tense,

he's sensitive to any movement nearby.

Even the harmless wanderings

of a turtle unsettle the king.

For his eyes have become cloudy

from a secretion

which helps separate his skins.

Half blind and vulnerable,

he is always ready to strike.

At last his eyes begin to clear

a sign his new skin

has finished growing.

The king is back

but must still shed his old scales.

His spent skin is tight and itchy.

As he scrapes and rubs to

relieve the discomfort,

his outer scales begin to peel.

It is a remarkable transformation

even his fangs, teeth,

and the tips of his tongue

will be replaced again and again

during the course of his life.

When the skin over his eyes lifts away

he is given new windows

through which to view his world.

At 12 feet long and still growing,

the snake must endure shedding

four or five times a year.

His discarded skin

makes a perfect meal

for the smaller creatures of his realm.

In this kingdom, nothing is wasted.

After ten days without eating,

the king is hungry.

A tree offers a good vantage point

for spotting prey.

For his size,

the king cobra is an agile climber.

Now he waits and watches.

A movement in the tree reveals another

hungry creature... a young hornbill.

Its father has spotted something.

The king cobra watches the hunt unfold

A vine snake ribbons

across a nearby branch.

Much smaller than the cobra,

this nimble hunter is

no match for the hornbill.

The little snake looks

as fierce as he can.

But it is only a brave display.

His venom is mild.

The young hornbill gets the prize.

And the king will

wait for bigger meals.

Below on the forest floor

a rat snake is on the hunt.

It is one of India's largest

non-venomous snakes.

Quick and voracious,

it will take any small mammal.

From his perch

the king spots the movement below.

It is just what he's been waiting for.

Silently, the king cobra

joins in the hunt.

The rat snake follows a scent.

Its sensitive tongue

has led it to prey.

The king cobra is on their trail.

As the rat snake prepares to att*ck,

the king closes in.

In a flash, the rat escapes.

And now, the hunter becomes the hunted

Against the hooded death,

even a seven-foot snake hasn't a chance.

The rat snake puffs up its throat

and lowers its tongue in thr*at,

but it is a futile gesture.

One strike delivers venom

and a crushing grip.

The rat snake returns the att*ck

but it's already doomed.

Within minutes the giant cobra's venom

takes effect, paralyzing the prey.

The heart stops pumping,

the lungs stop breathing,

and the victim suffocates.

The king cobra can easily

devour this large snake.

His backward-facing teeth help

guide the victim down his throat.

Digestion has already begun,

for the king's venom helps dissolve

the rat snake from the inside out.

Still, the king cobra

will linger over this meal.

And for the days it takes

to absorb his prey,

he'll have no need to hunt.

But yet the king is restless.

It is now the dry season

the time to find a mate.

A new,

intoxicating scent fills the air.

Some of the rain forest's trees

have dropped their leaves

and begun to fruit.

It is a joyous season for langurs.

Across the forest the

jackfruits are ripening.

Their sweet, pungent odor beckons.

It's an irresistible lure to

creatures both small

and great

To reach the succulent flesh

within the 20-pound fruit,

the prickly skin must first be peeled.

It's a messy job for even

the most adept of elephants.

She leaves a veritable

banquet in her wake.

This is a season when king cobras

roam widely through the forest.

But today the king's subjects

are distracted by the fruit.

They take only passing

notice of his presence.

The king still seeks a mate.

And it's in this fruiting season

that he's most likely to find one.

But it's not a female he encounters.

It's a rival... a formidable male.

A potent thr*at,

he must be driven away.

Each is capable of k*lling

the other with a single bite.

A strange duel begins

an encounter rarely witnessed

and never before filmed.

Rather than a fight to the death,

the battle has evolved

into a ritualized dance.

To win, one snake must force

the other's head to the ground.

At last, there is a victor.

It's the intruder.

The king has been dethroned.

Driven from his domain,

he must seek another.

But the rain forests of southern India

are a finite land.

As people press in,

less and less remains

for the king cobra.

Our king has no choice

but to leave the jungle.

Fortunately for the king cobra...

water is no barrier.

He is a gifted swimmer.

But what lies ahead for the king?

As the forest is cleared,

its creatures more and more

frequently cross the border

into a strange new realm...

the realm of civilization.

But surprisingly,

a tea plantation is a

welcome sight to the exiled king.

Here there is thick vegetation

and an abundance of rat snakes.

But this is no haven.

For when king cobras

and people cross paths

there is bound to be trouble.

Just one glimpse of the legendary

king can cause panic

and shut down a plantation for weeks.

This cultivated land is not as rich as

the king cobra's old domain,

but still,

he makes himself at home here.

Yet he must be evicted if work

is to resume at the plantation.

And even the king is no match for

humans who are determined and armed.

Fortunately for the king,

a special sort of

hunter has been called in.

His weapons are simply

a stick and a sack

to the amazement of his audience.

In this part of India,

people know to call Rom Whitaker

whenever a king cobra is on the loose.

An American expatriate raised in India

Whitaker has studied

these snakes for over 20 years.

I'll leave the bag here.

You take that path.

Okay.

Careful, huh?

Yeah.

I've been fascinated with

king cobras all my life.

Anyone who likes snakes

knows that this is the super snake,

the snake of all snakes.

As I get to know it better,

it gets more and more amazing.

Finding a king cobra in a

tea estate isn't very easy.

I spent 20 days tracking one down.

The bushes here are so thick that I

have to get down on my hands

and knees to see

where the snake's gone.

It's a dangerous proposition

even for Whitaker.

After several snakebites,

he is now allergic to antivenin.

The next bite could k*ll him.

He's coming.

I'm moving up ahead.

Okay.

With the serpent cornered,

the challenge now is to complete the

capture without a terrible accident.

The king cobra too is fragile.

The stick could easily hurt him.

He's big, he's really big.

Back, back, back, back, back,

behind, behind, behind.

I don't want to pull, man.

I've been catching king cobras

for quite a few years.

And I've evolved a system

which is quite gentle to the snake.

When the serpent is trapped,

he tries to escape,

lunging toward what appears

to be a dark hole.

He's gonna go in.

He's gonna go in.

Open the bag.

Okay, good.

Watch it,

he's gonna go in.

He's gonna go in.

Watch out.

Okay, twist, man.

This is one hell of a snake.

Whitaker is not just a hunter.

He's a leading expert on king cobras

and each capture is a precious chance

to learn more

about this elusive species.

To take detailed notes on the snake

Whitaker has to

remove him from the bag,

which is just

as dangerous as getting him in.

But he must be removed

to obtain a sample of his venom.

The amount of venom this serpent can

inject through his fangs is astounding

one bite can deliver

enough to k*ll 100 people.

The procedure doesn't harm the snake.

His venom is simply

saliva with a deadly twist.

Good venom sample.

Okay, shall we release him?

Yeah.

The king cobra can produce

an unlimited supply.

One, two, three.

Few people are actually

bitten by king cobras,

for they are reclusive serpents

whose home is deep in the forest.

And this is where Whitaker

makes his release

far from tea estates and people.

After his encounter

with the human race,

the king cobra seeks refuge.

A patchwork of woods

and open grassland,

this new home has all

he needs shelter and food.

But there will also

be other king cobras.

And now he is the newcomer.

Cautiously, he slides

through the undergrowth.

He senses something up ahead

a snake.

Is it food?

His tongue picks up a telltale scent.

It's another king cobra,

but this time a female.

The king may have found his queen.

She stands on guard.

She may be ready to mate,

but her bite is deadly.

So he moves slowly.

He tries to entice her.

But his gentle overtures are rebuffed.

Abandoning the subtle approach,

he becomes bolder.

Perhaps this will excite her.

With the female slow to respond,

the king's advances turn more urgent.

Finally, she begins to show interest

sliding her long,

sinuous body against his.

At last, with their tails entwined

they mate.

It's a lengthy affair

this limbless embrace may last

as long as three hours.

When the male withdraws

his crimson penis,

the union is over.

The two will go their separate ways,

but the king has passed on his legacy.

It is April, the season of serpentine

unions and approaching rains.

Clouds signal a difficult time ahead.

With eggs developing inside her,

the female cobra needs

to feed more frequently now.

In only 40 days,

she'll lay her clutch,

just before the monsoon breaks.

Rising humidity brings forth a new

generation of creatures.

A hammerhead slug feels

its way across the earth.

The female seems to be moving more

slowly as her eggs continue to grow.

And her journey will become

more uncomfortable yet...

for the moisture has triggered

sinister stirrings on the forest floor.

Leeches... the bloodsuckers of the rain

forest come forth by the thousands.

For the past six months,

they have been dormant in the soil.

Now they are hungry for blood

any blood.

From the moment they emerge,

leeches hone in on

virtually any animal that moves.

Once aboard the serpent,

they make for the vulnerable

gaps between her scales.

At this time of year,

hardly an animal

in the jungle is spared this plague.

As daylight fades,

there is at least some comfort.

With twilight,

the jungle becomes cooler.

In the brief dusk of the tropics,

one world prepares to sleep

while another awakens.

A multitude of tiny legs carries

a millipede through the darkness.

Beneath a jackfruit tree,

a porcupine makes an

evening meal of fallen fruit.

On this moonlit night,

the female king cobra

searches for a place to lay her eggs.

Their survival depends on her choice.

Temperature and humidity must be

just right if the eggs are to hatch.

She sizes up a stand of bamboo.

Her rustling startles the porcupine.

Then something remarkable happens.

She begins to gather bamboo leaves

with great sweeps of her body.

She starts to build a nest.

It is an extraordinary feat for

a limbless animal to build a nest,

and the female king cobra is the only

snake that does so.

It is an exhausting task.

As she toils, a slender loris in the

branches above begins his slow,

nocturnal search for food.

He takes only passing

notice of the stirrings below.

The king cobra will continue to

gather leaves for hours

before she is ready to lay.

The loris is suddenly more attentive

the rustling below has stopped.

It is well after midnight

and the cobra is laying her eggs.

The eggs will slowly whiten

as their coating dries.

It will take the mother much of the

night to lay her clutch of leathery eggs

Meanwhile, her upstairs neighbor

has spotted a sleeping lizard.

It's a lucky night for the loris.

With 18 eggs laid,

the mother cobra buries them beneath

another layer of leaves.

Here she will rest, as the Indian sun

warms the forest again.

The cobra's maternal duties

are far from over.

For the next two months,

she will guard her nest from

predators like the mongoose.

This plucky little hunter will try his

luck with anything that looks edible.

In a scene from Kipling's Jungle Book

it is the cobra against

the infamous mongoose.

The mongoose is a notorious egg thief

and one of the few creatures willing

to challenge a king cobra head on.

The persistent little mongoose

angers the mother cobra.

Towering three feet above him

she has no need to strike.

She has made her message quite clear.

On this humid, summer day,

others in the forest search for nests.

Finding king cobra nests in the

wild is really difficult.

So I've been offering rewards.

But still, in 20 years,

I've seen only four.

People think that a king cobra

on her nest is the most

dangerous creature on earth.

But what surprises me is that

they're actually shy and retiring.

All I have to do is gently prod

the nest and off she goes.

But I know she'll stick around just

to see what's going on.

This is a great chance for me to learn

more about this wonderful reptile.

Let's checkout the

condition of these eggs.

Even with the mother guarding them

some of the eggs won't survive.

Ah, here's a rotten one.

In this nest there are 18 eggs and a

few of them will never hatch.

God, there are leeches here too.

I'll chuck the rotten one away.

You better get them off your hands

before they start...

Ah, they've never bothered me.

Thirty point nine.

Not bad. Pretty constant.

Let's close up.

When the researchers have

finished their task,

they replace the eggs and rebuild the

mother's carefully constructed nest.

Only after they've gone

will the mother return.

Then she will resume

her watch for another month.

A protective mother king cobra

is just one of many challenges

for scientists working

in the rain forest.

I've been wandering in these

forests for decades,

and although we do keep

an eye open for elephants,

I've never been att*cked by anything

except the little creatures

mites, ticks, leeches.

Look at these suckers.

Well, as gory as it looks,

it really doesn't hurt very much.

Oh, that's a fat one.

Look at that.

The fish are eating them.

Pulling them off does feel a bit weird

And of course,

you go on bleeding for hours.

But they don't really

seem to do you any harm.

Soon leeches will be the

least of anyone's worries

for it is July and at last the

monsoon arrives in earnest.

Sweeping in from the Indian ocean,

it will bring as much as 30 feet

of rain in a single season.

The lashing rain will

test the king cobra's nest.

The deluge may last for weeks.

Though the nest is battered

it served its purpose

the female and her eggs

have weathered the storm.

After two months

the mother's long vigil is over.

Instinct tells her to abandon the nest

before her infants emerge

for she is a snake-eater by nature.

Within the nest,

her eggs are stirring with life.

Their mother glides off to hunt

her first meal in months.

Her babies will now have

to fend for themselves.

With a tiny sharp tooth

the first one tears open its shell.

One by one the others follow.

Soon the nest glistens with a dozen

miniature king cobras

complete with venom and tiny fangs.

For the first 24 hours

the hatchlings remain near their eggs

as they absorb their nutritious yolks

and take in the world

for the first time.

At last they start

to explore their nest.

The pencil-thin babies are

just 15 inches long,

but already they act

like their parents.

Quick to respond to movement

they spar with each other.

Then, instinctively

most leave the nest and climb into

the bamboo above for safety.

But one youngster lingers below.

Instead of leaving the

dangerous forest floor,

this hatchling is drawn

to the water for a drink.

It will be a costly mistake.

A crocodile is watching.

Beneath the other more

cautious hatchlings,

the mongoose returns

to the abandoned nest.

He's rummaging for leftovers.

He devours a king cobra

that never hatched.

In just a week, one of the hatchlings

sheds his skin for the first time.

He will shed every month

for his first year,

since baby king cobras grow quickly.

Now the hungry hatchling must

search for his first k*ll.

He spots his prey

a little olive water snake.

At this age, the baby king cobra can

barely make enough venom

to k*ll a tiny creature like this.

But his hunting form is

already impeccable.

He spreads his ribs

and makes a perfect little hood.

With his first successful k*ll,

the little cobra is well on his way

to becoming the next king.

In ten years, he may grow to 15 feet.

But only with luck.

For the forests of southern India

are shrinking.

In such a changing world

the hatchling's prospects are unsure.

What will become of the little king?

Will he be banished

to the realm of legends,

remembered only in a storybook?

For today, at least,

this mighty monarch rules

the fragile forest.

For he is king.