Black cobras are also called Forest Cobras and live in Western Africa. There are other color variations, including a black and yellow banded snake and a glossy black snake. They can also be dark brown or black, such as this guy, with lighter bellies. Cobras have hoods that are very easy to spot and make them instantly recognizable. Because they are also venomous and can be aggressive, seeing these hoods is often a sign to get the heck away from the angry snake. The monkey in this video is bold and doesn’t take the hint. He begins by grabbing the cobra by the tail. Cobras can be up to 10 feet in length, although the average is between 4.6 and 7.2 feet. This one looks closer to the short end of that range. He is still a long snake. Based on the hissing sounds that he makes in the video, he’s also a really annoyed snake.
Read the room, Monkey!
After letting go of the tail, the monkey stays close. Maybe he is curious about what this snake will do. Or maybe he’s not encountered a cobra before. Either way, he quickly finds out that they do not like to have their tails pulled. The cobra uses its muscles to “stand up” even more. Snakes have powerful muscles all along their bodies. This helps them move along the ground. It is also what they use to pull their heads up when needing to scare off potential predators. Some snakes, such as Boa Constrictors, even use their powerful muscles to squeeze their prey, suffocating them. Cobras use venom from their bites to kill prey. This snake lunges at the monkey. He moves out of the frame so we aren’t sure if he made contact. It’s likely that he didn’t, since the monkey comes even closer and grabs his tail again. The monkey actually pulls the snake along the ground by the tail. We can only speculate on what happens next. But based on the snake’s reaction so far, we aren’t sure it ended up going very well for the curious monkey.
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