Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Snakes #2

Yiikes!

So Mom opened the door to the roasting room and saw this guy (photo left) sitting there. A little snake is ordinarily not a problem and doesn't raise any eyebrows around here but the pattern and coloration on this one was consistent with that of a hatchling king cobra (photo below, taken from the web).

I figured it was better to know where he was that to let him roam around, so I caught it and now he is safely ensconced in an empty one gallon jug with a few holes poked in the lid.

If he turns out to be a harmless snake, maybe we will keep him - he is very pretty. If he is a cobra, then we will have a lot of work to do.

King cobras hatch between 20-50 eggs at a time, so he would not be alone. The baby's are lethal from day one and the moms protect the nest. A full grown cobras get up to 18 feet long.
That is not a misprint - Eighteen Feet.

Snakes don't scare me, but I believe if I opened the door to the tool room and found myself face to face with an 18 foot cobra, I would pee my pants.

Have a lot of photos and Uncle Doug is consulting with experts but no confirmation as of yet.

Life on the Ponderosa, always something new.

2 comments:

  1. Wait a minute - did you purchase copy-rights for some of those photos? They look awfully familiar!
    Take care,

    derek

    ReplyDelete
  2. The first one is a banded Krait! 10 times as toxic as a cobra, but very placid.

    ReplyDelete