Cobra Wrestling

A pair of male cobras grapple with each other in a clip from Life in Cold Blood;

Oddly enough, I was just thinking about dominance contests between males and various armaments this morning. Although violence is a part of nature, there are many species in which males compete for territories or mate access that have evolved traits or behaviors to minimize risk in such contests (elongated canines, like among the dinocerata, and the horns of kudu were what primarily occupied my thoughts this morning). Mating systems and systems of male competition may vary widely, though, and as strange as it may seem that an animal as deadly as a cobra has such a "peaceful" way of competing, it is then equally strange that the "necking" contests between male giraffes sometimes lead to the death of individuals of a species otherwise generally regarded as peaceful.