Naja naja

4 . 5 Naja naja - Indian Spectacled Cobra

(Sri Lankan Cobra, Black Pakistan Cobra, Naja karachiensis, Naja polyocellata)

Original Female

NajS-001-AD-F

CB'05 Female

NajS-002-05-F

CB'05 Male

NajS-003-05-M

CB'09 Female

NajS-004-09-F

CB'09 Male

NajS-005-09 M

CB'11 Male

NajS-006-11-M

CB'11 Male

NajS-007-11-M

CB'11 Female

NajS-008-11-F

CB'11 Female

NajS-009-11-F

I had purchased a pair of young adult Sri Lankan Spectacled Cobras on 12/14/00. I bred them in 2005, and produced the pair of '05s. I sold the adult male, a beautiful specimen, along with a 6' female I got in a deal, to Dean Ripa for display at his Cape Fear Serpentarium. The adult female above has continued to produce 30 plus eggs each year and has not been bred since early 2005, but only 1 egg in 2006 was good and hatched, but the hatchling was tiny and weak and didn't make it. Hopefully I can get her bred to her son this year, and get a good clutch of eggs.

This is the second specie of snake I ever bred. The first breeding I ever made was with Eastern (Common) Brown Snakes (Pseudonaja textilis) in late 2002. In late 2004, I bred the Eastern Browns again, and N. naja for the first time, and produced 12.5 hatchlings. I didn't cool the snakes at all, and they were being kept at 85 - 86 degrees at all times, and the eggs were incubated on a shelf in the snake room at 85 - 86 degrees. In 2006, I made breedings with N. sumatrana, 2 pairs of N. siamensis, and 1 breeding of Apalachicola King Snakes. These Apalachicola Kings were the first non-venomous specie I ever bred.

..........ID.#..........	..Around.Neck..	....Mid-body....	..Before.Vent..	.....Ventral.....	..Subcaudal..
NajS-001-AD-F	.	.	.	.	.
NajS-002-05-F	29	23	15	187	54
NajS-003-05-M	34	23	15	185	57
NajS-004-09-F	.	.	.	.	.
NajI-005-09 M	.	.	.	.	.
NajS-006-11-M	.	.	.	.	.
NajS-007-11-M	.	.	.	.	.
NajS-008-11-F	.	.	.	.	.
NajS-009-11-F	.	.	.	.	.

Most of the information below was taken from the website: Asiatic Naja by Wolfgang Wuster

Pattern & Color:

Very variable; hood mark spectacle-shaped, not linked to light throat area on sides, often absent, especially in adults and in north and north-west of range;

dorsal ground color variable, gray, yellowish, tan, brown, reddish or black; dorsum may be uniform, or with ragged cross-bands; throat and venter usually with one or several dark bands; at throat level, generally a spot on the outer edges of the ventrals and the lower one or two dorsal scale rows on each side; throat pattern often ill-defined.

Scalation:

Around Hood - 29 - 37

Mid-body - 23 - 25

Before Vent -

Ventral - 171 - 197

Sub-caudal - 50 - 67 all divided

Dorsal scale row counts very variable; except in north-west, very high dorsal scale row counts

North-western specimens

Around Hood - 23 - 27 Mid-body - 19 - 21

Size:

Average 100-150 cm, occasionally 200 cm or more.

Distribution:

India (except Assam), Pakistan (except most of Baluchistan), Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal.

Taxonomic comment: No subspecies are currently recognized. Although there are considerable differences between northwestern and other populations, the transition between them in scale counts and other characters is extremely gradual. Recognizing subspecies such as N. n. karachiensis or N. n. polyocellata would thus represent breaking a cline. However, more detailed sampling or the use of molecular methods may change this interpretation. Specimens without hood mark from northwestern India or Pakistan are often confused with Naja oxiana. This applies especially to the black cobras from southern Pakistan - N. oxiana does not occur in southern Pakistan, nor in most of western India (except northern hill areas), and is never black.

All Asiatic Naja were formerly regarded as part of Naja naja, hence the name is applied to other Asiatic cobra species in much of the older literature.

Some of the information on this page may have been copied from the publications below.

WCH Clinical Toxinology Resources

The University of Adelaide, Australia

http://www.toxinology.com/

The Snakes of Thailand and Their Husbandry by Merel J. Cox

Handbook To The Dangerously Venomous Snakes Of Myanmar

Alan E. Leviton, George R. Zug, Jens V. Vindum, and Guinevere O.U. Wogan

Venomous Snakes

Snakes in the Terrarium

by Ludwig Trutnau

Links below copied from the website of Wolfgang Wüster

http://www.bangor.ac.uk/~bss166/Taxa/AsNaja.htm

SLOWINSKI, J.B. & W. WÜSTER (2000) A new cobra (Elapidae: Naja) from Myanmar (Burma). Herpetologica, 56(2): 257-270. pdf

WÜSTER, W. (1992) A century of confusion: Asiatic cobras revisited. The Vivarium, 4: 14-18. pdf

WÜSTER, W. (1996) Taxonomic changes and toxinology: systematic revisions of the Asiatic cobras (Naja naja species complex). Toxicon, 34(4): 399-406. pdf

WÜSTER, W. (1998) The cobras of the genus Naja in India. Hamadryad, 23(1): 15-32. pdf

WÜSTER, W. & R.S. THORPE (1989) Population affinities of the Asiatic cobra (Naja naja) species complex in south-east Asia: reliability and random resampling. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 36: 391-409. pdf

WÜSTER, W. & R.S. THORPE (1991) Asiatic cobras: systematics and snakebite. Experientia, 47: 205-209. pdf

WÜSTER, W. & R.S. THORPE (1992) Asiatic cobras: population systematics of the Naja naja species complex (Serpentes: Elapidae) in India and Central Asia. Herpetologica, 48(1): 69-85. pdf

WÜSTER, W. & R.S. THORPE (1994) Naja siamensis, a cryptic species of venomous snake revealed by mtDNA sequencing. Experientia, 50: 75-79. pdf

WÜSTER, W., R.S. THORPE, M.J. COX, P. JINTAKUNE & J. NABHITABHATA (1995) Population systematics of the snake genus Naja (Reptilia: Serpentes: Elapidae) in Indochina: multivariate morphometrics and comparative mitochondrial DNA sequencing (cytochrome oxidase I). Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 8: 493-510. pdf

WÜSTER, W., D.A. WARRELL, M.J. COX, P. JINTAKUNE & J. NABHITABHATA (1997) Redescription of Naja siamensis Laurenti, 1768 (Serpentes: Elapidae), a widely overlooked spitting cobra from Southeast Asia: geographic variation, medical importance and designation of a neotype. Journal of Zoology, 243: 771-788. pdf