Heres a picture of my 'Granite' wild-type Naja kaouthia, just a few minutes after he shed yesterday. This guy is the the dad to one of the clutches of kaouthia eggs ive got incubating at the moment, mated with a normal female.



Due to the unsual colour of this snake, i did have a few thoughts as to whether this snake was definately a kaouthia, as the colour of it did resemble some variations of Naja atra. Both Brian Petrie and Dave Nixon also brought this to my attention. Sadly i have no idea about the history of this snake, whether it was CB or WC, or where it originated from, as it was given to me by a keeper here in the UK who also new nothing about its history.

However, i have also found a picture of a relatively similar looking Naja kaouthia, in the book, 'A photographic guide to Snakes and other Reptiles of Peninsualr Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand'

Photo by Piboon Jintakune



With this snake being the father of a clutch of eggs, i of course thought it best to figure out what species it was, incase i ended up hatching out atra x kaouthia hybrids. I spoke to Wolfgang about it a few weeks ago and got round to doing a scale count of the snake, and was very pleased to find out that it was infact a Naja kaouthia. I did a count of the ventral scales and subcaudal scales.

Naja atra has 161-180 ventrals and 37-51 subcaudals, Naja kaouthia has 170-197 ventrals and 46-61 subcaudals, so there is some room for over-lapping. However my kaouthia came up with 186 ventrals, and 56 subcaudals, a definate Naja kaouthia.

I look forward to seeing if i get any unusual looking babies from the clutch of eggs!

cheers, Tom

Hi Tom
It's a pleasure to see my pictures spread allover the www, everybody may use them, but only on request and never without name of the author and copyright holder.

Scale counts of your cobra make sure it is kaouthia.
Did you ever hear the name Naja Kaouthia "Formosa" for kaouthia with aberrant hood pattern like yours?
Keep us updated about what kind of pattern the babies will have - would be interesting - even if i'm not really a friend of producing mixtures of different "morphs".
Cheers
Peter

I am sorry Peter, i have removed your picture from my post It was the closest atra i could find to my snake!

Yes i have heard of the Formosa island cobra, however i thought that they were infact Naja atra rather than Naja kaouthia?

I will keep you informed with how the babies turn out, they are due early march.

cheers, Tom

You don't have to remove it - just give credit to the author - as it's usual.

Formosa Island Cobra should be atra - but Naja kaouthia "Formosa" refers to the atra-like hood pattern of some Naja kaouthia.

Confusion in these names will increase in the future, because of some stupids mixing atra and kaouthia in order to create new "morphs" and to earn some cash.
Cheers
Peter

Yes, had i discoverd the snake was a Naja atra, i would have stopped incubation of the eggs, and that it why i wanted a definate ID of the snake. I definately would not have wanted to produce any hybrids!

Do you know anymore about the locality of this colour variation of Naja kaouthia, or is it widespread?

cheers, Tom

No, Tom, unfortunately i don't know much more about this colour morph.
I'm not sure if there's a locality where these patterns are common - or the existing breeding pairs have been composed with specimens from different or unknown localities, but more or less the same hood pattern aberrations.
See here another picture of Naja kaouthia "Formosa"

http://images.google.at/imgres?imgurl=http://www.venomstreet.com/images/Snakes/V-KaoF-001-M.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.venomstreet.com/Asian%2520Cobras.htm&usg=__8izKzAh1jJyRp1ZR1VG6oEuMr0Y=&h=745&w=500&sz=145&hl=de&start=1&um=1&tbnid=av2iz4PFxXqPjM:&tbnh=141&tbnw=95&prev=/images%3Fq%3DNaja%2Bkaouthia%2Bformosa%26hl%3Dde%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:de:official%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1

i think it's Randy Ciuros website (scroll down)

Cheers
Peter

Thanks Peter, the 'formosa' Naja kaouthia in the the link ceratinly does resemble mine!

cheers, Tom

Beautiful specimen Tom. Wish he was mine.

I'll have to look for the book you mentioned. I have a book called "The Snakes of Thailand and Their Husbandry" by Merel J. Cox. It includes the photo you posted from the book you mentioned, as well as 8 other photos of 8 different kaouthia hood markings found in Thailand.

For years, I wondered about all these different hood markings and colors, but thanks to WW's "The Asiatic Cobra Systematics Page", and the book I have, you can plainly see that these are in-fact normal variations of kaouthia. Many many thanks for your work WW, Merel, and others for their work on my favorite snakes.

Yes, Peter Z., that is my website. I hope everyone enjoys looking at it. I try to answer, or point to other people's answers to questions that I had when trying to learn about Cobras. Now that I am much more knowledgeable than I once was, I still enjoy seeing the pics of, and reading the information about other peoples Cobras. Especially the less common morphs like Tom's.

Keep us posted on the hatchlings. If he was bred to a normal looking female, I would tend to think the hatchlings will more "Normal" looking, but you never know.

Best of Luck
Randy

Thanks Randy, there certainly are some amazing wild-type colour variations with Naja kaouthia!

I came across a bunch that looked like this guy, whilst out in Malaysia a few years back. They were being kept in Langkawi snake park, and had all apparently been caught in Kuala Perlis on the mainland.

Tom who did you get the snake from? It looks a bit like some I hatched around 3 or 4 years ago.

The clutch from this male hatched out a few weeks back and some of the babies have now shed, heres a couple of photos:

No matter the morph, cobras are beautiful in everyway including yours here. Congrats Tom