Western Ghats King Cobra

The Western Ghats king cobra was described as a separate species in 2024, when the king cobra was split into four. It is found only in the Western Ghats of southwestern India. Adults are banded like the northern king cobra, but the pale bands have no dark edges and there are fewer of them: fewer than 40, each separated by three or four rows of dark scales, against 40–70 in northern snakes. It also has fewer teeth on the pterygoid bones of the palate, 12 against 18–21 (Gowri Shankar et al. 2024, as reported by Mongabay India and summarised on Wikipedia).

It is a hill-dwelling snake of rainforest, most at home in mid-elevation forest between about 500 and 900 m, but also found in the foothills and in montane forest up to about 1,800 m, from the Ashambu hills near Kanyakumari north through the Agasthyamalai and Cardamom hills to Goa and southern Maharashtra (Wikipedia, species account). The lead researcher describes it as highly endangered and calls for its forest habitat to be protected, and India has no antivenom made specifically for king cobra bites (Mongabay India 2024). The Agumbe Rainforest Research Station in Karnataka works on its conservation.