From Smithsonian Magazine. I always find it fascinating to watch such battles. Not many things are faster than a striking snake.
Fascinating! Thanks for posting it.
Hooray for Rikki-tikki-tavi!!!
OMG!
Your video reminds me of a travel moment from one of our trips! We were on an all third class train traveling across Java. Every time the train stopped, (I swear it as every half mile!), onto the other end of our car would board a hawker sporting a badly taxidermied mongoose locked in mortal combat with a cobra! It as a truly grotesque and hideous thing to behold. So, of course, hubby wanted it desperately!
I would watch the hawker coming the full length of the train car thinking, “Ah Shit! Here we go again!” And we would have the same fight/argument/spat, over and over again, all night!
I was so relieved when dawn broke and we arrived in Surabayu, at last! One of the longest nights of my life!
As we stepped out of the train station, looking for a bemo, there was yet another hawker with the very same hideous item. I wanted to scream at him to just, “Go away and leave us alone!”
But we managed to slip through his wily trap ,thank goodness. Hubby still remarks on how, “He could have had one of those, if it wasn’t for me!”, from time to time should he spy something similar somewhere.
It still makes me shiver to think of how close I came to having such a thing in my house!
(And, lest you’re feeling sorry for poor hubby, let me assure you there were many such pitched battles where I did not prevail, despite my cleverest efforts.
Ugh, that’s actually a crappy video. It kept cutting away from the action to show a close up of the snakes face, and the killing strike was so fast you couldn’t see who got who (although it was obvious at the end). They didn’t show high speed camera footage of the strike like I wanted. THAT would have been educational and interesting.