National Geographic: King Cobra Page #2

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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 kill 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 kill 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,

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