A rarely witnessed fight between two male King Cobras is a key feature of the latest documentary in the country on one of the world's most venomous snakes.
The fight, says the film's maker P Gowri Shankar, is mostly mistaken for mating. "It is actually a tussle between two males for a female, while mating is a very silent affair," says the man who mainly shot 'Cobra King' in and around Karnataka's Agumbe, the homeland of king cobras. It showcases the life of king cobras, their breeding biology, the need to protect them and the reverence accorded to them by the people of Malnad.

The only member of the snake family to build a nest to lay eggs, the female leaves the nest just before the hatchlings emerge, said Gowri Shankar.

"All observations and filming were done on field by monitoring the snakes without the use of radio telemetry. This was challenging and we could not afford any mistakes as it would have been impossible to track them if they moved away," he said....Read more

Source web page:Times of India