Posted on 03/05/2021 8:48:38 PM PST by nickcarraway
A few visitors to MacRitchie Nature Trail witnessed the spectacular sight of a king cobra swinging from a tree branch on Sunday afternoon (Feb 21).
Stomp contributor Masnashzreen shared with Stomp a video of the snake swinging and dangling from a tree that he took at about 3.52pm.
He told Stomp that he made sure to keep a safe distance while taking the video even though there were other visitors who got closer to take photos and videos of the reptile.
In the video, people are heard exclaiming in awe.
"Adult king cobras are three to four metres-long on average so I made sure I was at a safe distance to experience it face-to-face while taking the video as it is the world's longest venomous snake," he said.
"I feel that hikers and joggers will be extra cautious in this environment where we don't know what is waiting for us.
"I'm lucky enough to experience this creature as usually, I would see it on the TV or on the web, but this time I got to see it with my own eyes.
"Am I considered lucky? I guess so."
Wow! Amazing photos! I stepped on one of those, about same size, near the tippy end of his tail long ago in Cambodia. Luckily, he was as scared of me as I was of him. He took off one way, and I the other. They are awesome snakes. Thanks for posting!
NOPE!
I was with the largest King Cobra in the US a few years back. Snaky Steve had a snake show and they were all hot. I have some photos of him in the snake bus playing with the snake with his snake rods or whatever they use. 17 foot long—so a little more than three meters. Thankfully I had zoom. I wasn’t going to get on top that critter. Didn’t tell the wife...she would have killed me if she found out I was playing with cobras.
But it is the Woodland Cobra that usually kills the handlers. I gotta a great story to tell one day about all of that...but that is for another day.
Don't pet the bison.
I stepped on a rattler’s tail the same way out on White Sands missile range. No rattle till I stepped on him. Small buggy-whip size thing a couple of feet long, about as thick as a thumb. I let out a girl sounding noise I didn’t know I could even make, launched straight up till the soles of my boots were about 3 feet in the air, then somehow flew about 4 feet sideways.
I didn’t get bit by some miracle.
A couple years ago I was hiking. Most rattlers slither away quickly.
I was going down hill on hot day, and there was a huge rattler all coiled up on the trailing, spitting his tongue at me aggressively. I had never seen one do that. I did not go near him.
Had read many decades ago, that they were one of the few creatures that would pursue humans.
Weird, because it is not like they can eat us.
Forty or so years ago, was in a car passenger seat with my girlfriend mid-afternoon. Up in the Santa Monica mountains, enjoying the view for a while. Sunny and hot.
After a while, opened the passenger door to step out. Just before putting my foot down, saw a very thick snake slithering out from under the car. Ended in rattles. Guess he was enjoying the shade.
Snakes spook me bad.
In the swamps of the south....cottonmouth Water Moccasins will chase your butt down. Mean, mean, mean snakes.
I guess it’s a territorial thing...but I’ve seen them swim up to the boat and then rise up to try to get IN the boat with you....never happened, but if it did I would be swimming.
Damn things are evil.
Swingin'! Strikes without warning (the next morning).
Pfft. If I stepped on a rattler I’d make a girl sounding noise.
When I lived in the Philippines, they found a king cobra in the bottom floor of the house next to us, all coiled up in their carport.
Liberty in Bangkok Thailand 1973, the taxi driver I hired for the 5 days asked if I wanted to go see cobra mongoose fights. Never heard of them, I asked what they are like. He says they are very illegal in Thailand bec both are protected animals. But they occur bec there are large bets on how many cobra strikes mongoose will take before he shreds the cobras head.
10am the next morning I left for the fights w 3 others at same hotel. Already drank a liter of Thai beer when driver arrived, burned some Thai stick during the taxi ride, he explained where he would be parked when the fights are over. Couldn’t go in w us because admission was big$$$. This guy was thrilled when we offered to buy his ticket. Turned out to be a great decision.
This was the best 3 hours of entertainment, sans sex, I had in my life. Driver explaining all the action and customs of the fights, etc. Mostly wealthy and very wealthy Thais, a couple groups of German soldiers, 2 Brit or Aussie officers and us. Prob 80 people. As long as you were placing bets, beer and buddha was, LOL, complimentary.
In short order, I was yelling Thai slogans for the mongoose or cobra depending on how I bet. And screaming Thai insults at the fight managers when the mongoose started to slow from multiple cobra strikes.
BTW, this was a complete blood sport, the cobras always lost, but according to an officer, the mongooses always died within hours. They served fried and raw sauteed cobra dishes during the fights w huge bowls of cooked rice and veggies.
Now that sounds interesting.
Yikes! Rattles terrify me! We don’t have so many here, but my uncle in Arizona sometimes sends me pics of rattlers sunning themselves in his back yard (shudder). The common baddies here are copperheads. At least you can smell them when you get in their proximity and get the check away (it’s a weird cucumberish smell). Rattles are just plain creepy.
The funny thing about my encounter with the humongous King Cobra. I thought his tail end was just a tree root. Well, duh. I was walking through a palm grove. No surface tree roots! So dumb. Even dumber, I walked through that grove nearly every other day to get to my little “private beach” on the island (private because there were three graves of shipwreck victims there and the locals were afraid of their ghosts — ghosts are a big deal there).
I could always hear gobs of snakes slithering up there in the palms, and thinking they were some sort of harmless Emerald Boa (duh again — not native to SE Asia — they were actually palm vipers), paid no mind to them, even thought them beautiful and charming.
Then, months later, one happened to fall out of a palm overhanging the sandy path we jokingly called “Main Street” on the island, that led from my Robinson Crusoe stilt shack to our office. Plop. Right smack dab in the middle of “Main Street”. Everyone froze. Sudden total quiet on a minor holiday weekend when more people than usual out. There she was, all coiled, beautiful brilliant green, head raised in strike position — yep, palm viper!
A little kid, just under two years old, bounded forward from just behind me. I put out my right hand and caught him in the chest, somehow a reflex thing, even while I was still in the process of realizing this was a Big Bad Danger. Somehow,the little kid got it, and remained in place, stuck like glue to the palm of my hand. Parents behind me let put breath in relief, but that was the only sound. Everyone still just frozen. After a few minutes, some brave young man hurled a push cart from the dock toward the angry freaked-out snake, and she slithered back up her tree, and life on the island returned to normal. Whew!
But walking through that palm grove never felt the same again!
Thank you for enduring the H*ll on Earth in Vietnam in service to our country. I learned to appreciate you guys more properly during my stint in Cambodia. Talk about “tolerance for ambiguity”! You guys had to have it in spades! Not knowing who was the enemy, or who was the enemy pretending to be in your side. That can be maddening. We had same in Cambodia in the early 90s leading up to the election. “ Hun Sen men” would dress up as “Pol Pot men” and vice versa, and so on until we got Hun Sen men pending to be Pol Pot men pretending to be Hun Sen men! It was so utterly ridiculous, but both could be dangerous. Maddening. And it got me to thinking more about what you guys must have gone through.
Also, I would like to say, the very best charity at the time was run by our Vietnam vets on the Isle of Cripples in the middle of the Mekong in Phnom Penh. They got it. They also taught mine victims to produce prosthetics for themselves and others crippled by mines. They did this competently and quietly, and outshone every other money-grubbing “look at us” “charitable organization” riding around in their air conditioned Land Rovers at the time.
Well done, vets, and my utmost respect! I salute you!
Them snakes will bring out the best in yas.
i saw a good friend of mine jump like that ar WSMR. I wanted to look around at yhe top of the pass from Las Cruces at twilight. He stayed in the car because of snakes. He came looking for me and on the way back to the car, the snake saw him and rattled first. I’ve never seen someone jump like that before or since but I jumped pretty high as I passed one on Carr Peak in AZ.
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