I am doing a piece of work about king cobras in college and I need to find out what king cobras eat at different life stages and if they ever need any supplements? Do any of you know anything about this?
I would like to find out info about king cobras. I am doing a project in college about king cobras and need to find out if they have 3 or more life stages and if they are ever given any supplements in zoos? Does anyone here know this information?
Hello Tzofia Adult king cobras feed mainly on snakes, but also lizards, birds, rodents and other small vertebrates, as well as eggs, if snakes are scarce. The babies have similar diets and will eat snakes and rodents.
Where did you get this information from? Asfaik, behavioural observations and GIT content control in king cobras have so far revealed local snake species and the odd Bengal monitor as king cobra prey, but none of the ones you mention above. @Tzofia: if only you had attended the King Cobra Symposium in the Netherlands last october - you'd have found plenty of people to discuss your project. ^^ I'd recommend you to contact Gowri Shankar or his mentor Romulus E. Whitaker for your questions.
Hello Batto. The sources were: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/reptiles/k/king-cobra/; What do king cobras eat and King cobra - Wikipedia.
The National Geographic article gets a 404 error. The "What do King Cobras eat" page is just cut-and-pasting Wikipedia. And Wikipedia is Wikipedia - the bit about rodents etc is curiously un-footnoted.
Chli beat me to it. Whether king cobras eat rodents in the wild is a matter of great debate among king cobra researchers, breeders and keepers. Frankly, it doesn't appear to be the case. Therefore, and given the aforementioned lack of a reliable footnote, I'd take this info with a very large grain of salt.
Doesn't make much difference to the overall point, the the National Geographic link works if you take the semicolon (presumably added by Dassie rat to break up the list) King Cobra | National Geographic
King cobras in captivity in Asian countries are often fed local snake species, such as rat snakes (Pytas sp.). In Western countries, such as North America or Europe, captive king cobras are usually fed snakes commonly available in the commercial pet trade, i.e. corn snakes and ball pythons. Some have also managed to make their king cobras accept rats as food. And yes, a few keepers/breeders add supplements such as Korvimin to their diet. There are plenty of internet platforms such as Venomland or Venomousreptiles.org as well as various FB groups which can get you in touch with international king cobra afficionados. Maybe this new book on king cobras might be of interest for your project, too. King Cobra: Natural History and Captive Management Speaking of which: am I going to find special mention there for my courtesy?
You're welcome. So that is a yes in regard to the reference? BTW: you can actually combine the quotation and your comment in one post (as I'm doing right now) to prevent the unnecessary elongation of the thread.
Sorry, I am not used to forums. To correct my own mistake, it is a leaflet I am doing, not a project.
https://reptilespark.com.au/animals/reptiles/snakes/exotic-snakes/king-cobra/ says captive king cobras can be weaned onto rodents at an early age. Dominic Mongahna (https://www.quora.com/What-do-king-cobras-eat) claims to have worked with king cobras and says that they frequently eat mice and rats. While I accept that king cobras are specialist feeders on snakes, it doesn't mean that they only eat snakes. Similarly, giant pandas occasionally eat bamboo rats and koalas occasionally eat Acacia and Melaleuca leaves.
@Dassie rat: as previously mentioned, to feed or not to feed rodents to king cobras is an ongoing point of sometimes even vicious (I was tempted to write venomous...^^) debate among king cobra breeders and keepers. While there are, as you've pointed out, successful breeders of king cobras that raise them on (or at least partly feed them) rodents, others see this as a cardinal sin, as this behaviour hasn't been observed in the wild so far. Since I have friends on both sides of the debate, I've steered away from this what I consider quite unnecessarily heated argument, and I'm inclined to keep doing that for the sake of saving friendships.
Hello Batto. I have never seen a king cobra eating anything; to be honest, I would prefer to see an egg-eating snake eating an egg. I tried to look up various websites and I can't verify if the writers have ever seen wild king cobras, never mind whether they have seen them eating anything. I accept the problems with people copying articles from others and repeating mistakes and I can't verify which authors, if any, are experts in the subject. I always remember what my mother said many years ago. She said that a koala must be related to the wombat and that the giant panda was a bear, due to similar appearance. At the time, the koala was placed in the Family Phalangeridae and the panda in the Procyonidae. Ultimately, my mother, who specialised in standing orders, book keeping and accountancy, was right and I was wrong. Suffice it to say, captive king cobras will eat rodents, but there seems to be some controversy about whether wild king cobras will do so, although the Encyclopedia of Life (King Cobra - Ophiophagus hannah - Overview - Encyclopedia of Life) is one of many sites that suggest it does, although the wordage seems to be the same in each site.
And that was one of the points discussed at said conference, and it's not an uncommon thing when it comes to venomous snakes: anecdotal evidence that is quoted by everyone, but once someone digs deeper, the search for true facts and data leads nowhere. So far, none of the authorative experts , like the two gents mentioned above, has so far witnessed a wild king cobra eating rodents or has found rodent parts in king cobra guts (except in the guts of the serpents the king cobra ate).
