Remember that great scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian where
Michael Palin, hanging from his arms in a dungeon, waxes poetic about how great it would be to be spat in the face?
He’d probably like the spitting cobra. Sort of.
Actually, I thought this was a fascinating story (and
gallery too). National
Geographic reports that cobras not only have near
perfect aim, but they almost
always go right for the face. A research student named Katja Tzschätzsch has shown that the red Mozambique spitting
cobra and the black-necked spitting cobra deliberately aim for the eyes of whomever or whatever they feel threatened
by. Waving a hand in the cobras face does nothing, it seems, but when they see the whites of your eyes, they let go
with a potent and painful loogie.
And what if you, while out on your jungle trek come face to face with a spitting cobra? Should you be worried. Um,
yes. The “cocktail of toxins” they spit is filled with nerve poisons and other components harmful to eye tissue. You
will at the very least scream in agonizing pain. At the worst, you will go blind or die.
Food for thought as you head out on your next exotic trip.