King Cobra
Let’s begin by giving the King Cobra its final grade: A+.
There are two reasons for this: 1) This is the single most obvious grade to be given out for anything ever in the history of grades being given out for things, and 2) Like you’re going to be the person who gives King Cobra an A-. Yeah, good luck with that one.
For most other animals, it would define absurdity to dispense a grade prior to the actual ‘review,’ but then again, most animals aren’t King Cobra. And that, friends, is very good news for everyone. Because if most animals were King Cobra, the animals that weren’t King Cobra would soon be dead from fright. And venom.
Hey what’s up?
Granted, the King Cobra is not the absolutely most venomous snake in the world*, but it’s better not to bring this up in the company of King Cobra. One bite from King Cobra is enough to kill 25 people or drop an elephant. Sometimes King Cobra does this as a party trick.
King Cobra’s other party trick is to raise up to one-third of its body off the ground and scare the living hell out of everyone at the party. Being the world’s longest venomous snake, and having been recorded in the wild at up to 18 ½ feet, King Cobra can then look a full-grown man in the eye. King Cobra will then let out a bone-chilling hiss that sounds something like a growling dog. King Cobra has ruined many a party with his so-called ‘tricks.’
But please don’t anyone tell King Cobra that nobody likes his party tricks. That dude gets weird.
I can also tie a cherry stem in a knot with my forked tongue.
By taking the name King Cobra, King Cobra has backed itself into a corner where it constantly has to prove itself. Its Latinate name, Ophiophagus hannah, literally means ‘snake eater,’ a name King Cobra picked during first-year Latin class to let the other snakes know what’s up. Now King Cobra’s diet consists of other snakes, including large pythons and, yes, smaller King Cobras. To say that King Cobra has an ‘ appetite for destruction’ is not just a terrible play on words – it’s also deadly accurate (from neurotoxic venom).
King Cobra does what King Cobra wants, when King Cobra wants. Like building nests. King Cobra is the only snake known to build nests for its eggs. King Cobra also likes to dance to flutes. And to shed its skin wherever it wants and leave it there as a reminder: ‘King Cobra was here.’
I like nests. You have a problem with that?
If anyone ever tells you that maybe King Cobra is trying to overcompensate for a complete lack of appendages, stay away from that person. You don’t want King Cobra lumping you in with them if that gets around.
King Cobra is currently working on time travel and invisibility.
GRADE: A+
* This is actually fairly difficult to determine definitively, because one must consider the toxicity of said venom (which is either a neuro- or hemotoxin or both, and is always a polypeptide), the amount of venom a snake carries (King Cobra carries a ton because King Cobra is so massive), and a snake’s relative aggressiveness. Still, the late, great Steve Irwin did a special on the world’s deadliest snakes (six of which are in Australia, so, you know, don’t go there) and pronounced the Fierce Snake (Australia, of course) the deadliest. That said, it’s really up to the individual animal to decide what kind of deadly venom they want to get bit with.
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