You may have heard that king cobras eat only snakes. In fact, they mostly eat snakes but will also eat lizards, eggs and small mammals, and they prefer smooth-scaled snakes over snakes with keeled scales. King cobras hunt by day and can travel long distances to track their prey over a long time.

The scientific genus name Ophiophagus, which means snake-eater, was proposed in 1864 by the scientist Günther. King cobras belong to the family Elapidae, which many other venomous snakes share.

King cobras spend almost a quarter of their time up in trees or bushes, and they can raise the front of the body about three to four feet off the ground. They also have better eyesight than most snakes.

Some people think that snake charmers hypnotize cobras with their flute music, but they do not really do so. The hood that a king cobra can spread on its neck makes the snake look bigger.

A king cobra's fangs are fixed to its upper jaw, so they have to be short. Venom is made in glands joined to the fangs, and a small muscle pushes it through the hollow fangs. The venom contains neurotoxins, which are poisons that act on the nervous system.

A king cobra's hiss is lower than most snakes' hisses and sounds more like a dog's growl. The snake makes the sound with tiny holes in its windpipe, and its lung makes the sound deeper.

King cobras live about 20 years in the wild, while a male in human care lived 17.1 years on average, according to the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. As of November 2026, the IUCN Red List lists the king cobra as Vulnerable, and cutting down forests in Southeast Asia has destroyed the homes of many king cobras.

The king cobra is the only snake that builds a nest for its eggs, and the nest is usually built in a thicket of bamboo. A mother pulls leaves and plants into a pile with her body. The nest has two parts, a lower chamber for the eggs and an upper chamber where the female stays, and the rotting leaves give off heat that keeps the eggs warm.

A female lays about 21 to 40 eggs, which take about 60 to 90 days to hatch. Just before the eggs hatch, the mother leaves the nest. A baby king cobra is about 13 inches long when it hatches, and a yolk sac gives it food for about two weeks.

Words to know

• keeled: ridged
• genus: group of species
• thicket: dense plants
• chamber: small room
• neurotoxins: nerve poisons