What kind of snake is the Chinese cobra?

The Chinese cobra is also known as Zhoushan cobra, white-necked black, Bao Hu, bat snake, flat-necked snake, flat-headed snake and so on. It is commonly known as rice shovel in Guangdong, Guangxi and Hong Kong, while it is called rice spoon Qian, rice spoon and bulging-necked snake in Taiwan. It belongs to the cobra genus of the cobra family and is distributed in the middle and low elevations of southern China, Taiwan and Indo-China Peninsula.

The Chinese cobra is medium to large in size, with a total adult length of 1.5 to 2 meters. There are no buccal scales, 1 preorbital scales, 2 retroorbital scales and 2 temporal scales. The upper lip scale 7, the third largest, its anterior to the nasal scale, then into the orbit, the lower lip scale 8, the front 4 or 3 incised premaxilla. The dorsal scales are smooth and angular. the ventral scales are 158-193 in males and 160-196 in females. The anal scales are intact or dichotomous. There are 3954 pairs of males and 385.53 pairs of females. The back is black or dark brown, there are glasses-like markings on the back of the neck, and there are white fine rings all over the body, especially in the young individuals, but not in the old ones.

Chinese cobra has a wide range of food habits, mainly frogs and snakes, followed by birds and rats, as well as lizards, Loach, eels and other small fish. It has been observed in Taiwan that the snake mainly feeds on birds and rats, and it also feeds on water snakes and Loach by the water. Sting occurs around May every year, and hibernates in November.

Many zoos of Chinese cobras keep a small amount for viewing, but most of them cannot survive the winter and are caught from the wild the following year. Some snake farms are also raised, but few can successfully breed the next generation, usually by purchasing those caught in the wild and making use of them. Oviposition, mating from May to June, laying eggs from July to August, egg length 42 mm 54 mm, short diameter 26 mm 31 mm, incubation period 1.5 2 months, newly hatched snakes about 200 mm in length.

Chinese cobra lives in plains, hills and low mountains, found in farming areas, roadsides, ponds, residential courtyards, more than daytime activities, vertically distributed at 70m to 1630m. Distributed in Anhui, Chongqing, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Laos people's Democratic Republic, Vietnam.

Chinese cobra is a venomous snake of groove tooth, which secretes a mixture of nerve and blood, which has a large amount of detoxification, strong toxicity, wide injury and serious harm. It will be life-threatening if it is not treated in time after being bitten. Its venom can be made into freeze-dried products and snake venom enzymes, and the medicinal three-snake wine made by Golden Ring Snake and Chinchilla Snake has the effect of dredging channels and collaterals and dispelling rheumatism.