📸 PhotoPhoto: Thomas Brown · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons Source
Chinese Cobra
Naja atra (Chinese Cobra · タイワンコブラ)
💡 Everyday Comparisons for Size, Mass & Speed
- 💡 Its maximum length of 165 cm is similar to the height of an adult human (Comparison).
- 💡 Materials from the University of Hong Kong note that the Chinese Cobra is occasionally found inside and outside rural houses.
Reference standards: coach bus ~12 m, mid-size car ~4.9 m, compact car ~1 t, basketball hoop 3.05 m, credit card 8.56 cm.
📖 1. Overview
The Chinese Cobra is a venomous snake living in southern China, Taiwan, and northern Vietnam, and is common and widespread in Hong Kong.
🦴 2. Anatomy & Morphology
Its body is usually dark-colored, rarely black, grey, brown, or golden. Its neck spreads into a short, broad hood, with a single or paired eye-shaped white marking on the back of the hood, though some individuals lack this marking.
🔍 3. Ecology & Behavior
Active mainly at night, it eats toads, frogs, rodents, and other snakes, and rarely catches lizards or birds. When threatened, it rears up, spreads its hood, hisses, and strikes downward. It lays 14 or more eggs, and hatchlings about 30 cm long emerge after about 2 months.
🇰🇷 4. Connection to Korea
No direct record connecting this species to Korea has been found.
📚 Sources & References
- • IUCN Red List VU (2014) — https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/192109/2040894
- • IUCN Red List category VU — latest assessment at iucnredlist.org
- • catalogueoflife.org — 45KWC
- • iucnredlist.org — 2040894
- • wikidata.org — Q2351506
- • commons.wikimedia.org — File:Naja atra (03).jpg
- • biosch.hku.hk — Naja atra.html
- • Silhouette: PhyloPic — V. Deepak · CC BY 3.0 (Congeneric silhouette — Ophiophagus hannah)
Recorded dimensions are widely cited representative estimates from public literature and may vary by study or specimen.