Reptilia · Squamata
Naja kaouthiaLesson, 1831
Monocled Cobra
Photograph by Akash M. Deshmukh, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
.jpg){kind=link}
A ground-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating snake from the Oriental region, reaching 230 cm nose to tail.
Also called Monocellate Cibra.
Reptilia › Squamata › Elapidae › Naja
- Grows to
- 2300mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 25.4years
Longer than 92% of all elapid snakes anyone has measured.
The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because body length here runs from 219 to 5,710 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.
What is known
39 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Two of these figures disagree
Body mass (a typical adult) is given as 3,113, and Body mass (greatest) as 1,873.6 — but a typical adult cannot outweigh the heaviest one ever recorded. They come from different sources and both are shown exactly as those sources give them.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2011
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 25.4years
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 1570mm5 ft 2 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 2300mm7 ft 7 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 1570mm5 ft 2 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 343.8mm13.5 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 335mm13 in
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 16g0.56 oz
- Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed
- 1873.6g4.1 lb
- Body mass · a typical adultdisputed
- 3113g6.9 lb
snakes only in this source
snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length
2300 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), Shi et al. 2022 "total length for adults 937–1712 mm (1266.4 ± 248.1 mm, n = 10)", Cox et al. 2012 (1000-2300 mm TL, 655-1875 g, neonates 13.2-18.8 g, 315-355 mm TL)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Oriental
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Lowest it lives · above sea level
- 450m
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 870m
- Range size
- 2,820,691km²
rats, birds, lizards, snakes, frogs (Wang et al. 2023), mammals, chicks, snakes, amphibians and fish (Cox et al. 2012)
Wang et al. 2023
(Feldman 2015), nocturnal and crepuscular (Cox et al. 2012)
Feldman 2015
mean 500 (Stark et al. 2018), 863 n=1 (Lalmuansanga et al. 2020), 2-120 (Ratnarathorn et al. 2023), up to 1620 in China (Cox et al. 2012) - is it still kaouthia?
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 26.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 8–45eggs
- Mean clutch
- 26.5eggs
Feldman et al. 2015
mean 26.5 (Scharf et al. 2015), 8-45 (O'Shea 2011), 8-18 (Whitaker and Captain 2004), 12-33 (Lalmuansanga et al. 2020), 10-37 (Cox et al. 2012)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Lesson
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1831
- Type locality
- India
Keeping one
7 ft 7 in × 3 ft 9 in × 5 ft 8 in(230 × 115 × 173 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes snakes as a fraction of total length: 1 × 0.5 × 0.75.
Mindestanforderungen an die Haltung von Reptilien (Sachverständigengutachten), German Federal Ministry for Nutrition, Agriculture and Forestry, Animal Welfare Division, 10 January 1997. The standard states these floor areas are recommendations rather than binding limits.
From this animal’s own total length of 7 ft 7 in (2300 mm), at 1 × 0.5 × 0.75 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Monocled Cobra. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
Feeding
A prey item should be between the same width as the widest part of the snake's body and about 1.5 times that width.
Widely used across snake husbandry references. An alternative formulation gives prey at 10-15% of the snake's body mass. This is established practice, not a measurement.
159kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 1,874 g, the heaviest recorded for Monocled Cobra — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.
An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.
Other inherited traits
Inherited characteristics and conditions recorded for this species. These are not morphs — nobody breeds for them.
- Sex determination1 reference
What nobody knows
These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.
- — Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult mean
- — Female length · mean, nose to tail
- — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult mean
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Clutches in a year
- — Clutches a year · fewest
- — Clutches a year · most
- — First breeds from · youngest recorded
- — First breeds by · oldest recorded
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Age at first breeding · female
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
Others in Elapidae
Take this data
Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.
This species as JSON · the whole dataset
Cite this page
The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Naja kaouthia. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/naja-kaouthia
@misc{naja_kaouthia_2026,
title = {Naja kaouthia},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/naja-kaouthia}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.