I can tell you which one I’d prefer to go up against. Below the bold because it is all squiggly and gross.
Cobra vs. Python: Who would win?
Posted by Greg Laden on November 8, 2009
(13)
Comments
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I’m guessing that that was a king cobra (the one that eats other snakes). This is obviously an example of intelligent design: snakes are clearly designed to eat other snakes!
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Correct, the narrator said that it’s a king cobra, and the python is a reticulated python.
I liked his comment at the end: ‘In the oppressive heat of the dry season, two giant snakes become one’.
I wonder, though, what would happen if the python was longer than the cobra and it didn’t notice? Would it just sit around with half a snake sticking out of its mouth until the rest had digested a bit?
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oddly, it made me think of the spaghetti scene in “Lady and the Tramp”
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I’ll stick to Corn Pops
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And here I thought this was going to be a post about programming.
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Is this GI Joe Cobra vs. Monty Python? My money’s on Python….
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Unless the python can find a way to avoid the venom it isn’t a contest. Its like bringing a knife to a gun fight.
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ppnl: Are you sure for this case? There are snakes that appear to be immune to other snake’s venom, and there are snake eating snakes that manage to eat poisonous snakes even if they are (maybe) not immune. (This whole area of research is pretty undeveloped as I understand it)
I voted for the cobra because they are very active and fast moving compared to pythons, in my personal experience. Given roughly equal size, I’d guess the cobra would out-move the python.
But the venom might be the key factor.
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If you look at the piece of the video that shows both snakes’ head, before the cobra starts eating, you’ll see the python was quite close to what it needed to do. It had the cobra gripped just a little too far behind the jaws, at least by that point. The cobra could still move its head around a bit. If the python had come upon it at another angle, one that didn’t require it to coil by moving its body in front of the cobra’s jaw, it might well have won.
In fact, given the tendency of even nonvenomous snakebites to become infected (as I know to my discomfort), the python might have had its revenge.
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OK, I looked it up. This species of python tends to eat warm blooded things. This species of cobra tends to eat … snakes.
(Or did they say snacks.)
“King cobra’s genus name, Ophiophagus, literally means “snake-eater”, and its diet consists primarily of other snakes, including rat snakes, sizeable pythons and even other venomous snakes (including kraits, cobras and smaller members of its own species).” (wikipedia)
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Sure looks as if the Cobra struck right away. That snake was hunting the python. Ewwwww, but strangely fascinating.
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There’s a programming language called Cobra?
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, which is now available for the 
