Country notebook:m.krishnan

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

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COUNTRY NOTEBOOK : M. Krishnan : The mongoose-cobra fight : The Sunday Statesman : 11 January 2015
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THE MONGOOSE-COBRA FIGHT

"SO much has been written already about the mongoose-cobra fight that unless one has something new to say there is no point in saying anything at all. And even if one has something new, it is impossible to say it without covering the old ground.

Clearly one of those situations that Shakespeare summed up admirably add to the embarrasment of grammarians in the famous lines:

If it were done when 'tis done,
then 'twere well
It were done quickly.

Here, then, is the resume of the fight as reported by observers ranging from Jardon and Kipling to Sunday magazine photographers. In the fight, the mongoose rely on sheer agility and not, the legend would have it, on a herb which it knows and whose leaves, well chewed, are a sure remedy for snake-bite. It is also helped by its thick, harsh, pepper-and-salt coat - the bristled hair magnifies the size of the mongoose and causes the cobra to strike 'short', and to some extent the coat prevents the fangs sinking into the flesh, even if the snake does succeed in getting in a bite. Furthermore, mongooses, like hedgehogs and pigs, are less susceptible to snakebite than most mammals. However, it is its superior agility that serves the mongoose best in the encounter. It hurls itself aside when the snake strikes, sometimes turning a somersault in its haste, and when the cobra is somewhat spent by the effort and can no longer raise its head quickly from the ground after striking and missing, the mongoose leaps in and fastens its teeth in its adversary's head. Then it crunches the life out of the snake.

It is a pretty fair and complete summary of what has been written so far, and accurate enough as an observation report till the very end. But the fight never ends as simply as that - the mongoose pouncing in and crunching up the snake's head in one bite. It leaps in and bites, and if it gets a fair hold, hangs on - if it does not, it releases the hold and leaps aside before the snake can do any harm and then waits for a better opportunity. When it has secured a firm grip on the snake's head, a violent, though frequently brief, struggle follows.

That may seem an academic nicety, whether the mongoose kills in one quick crunch or in a prolonged bite, till I explain my point. The mongoose invariably gets it hold on the snake's head, usually on the SNOUT. Thereafter the snake thrashes about and writhes violently in an attempt to break the enemy's grip. It is then the damage is done. A snake is only as good as its spine - as those who have killed a snake with a stick will know, a blow that breaks the back is far more effective in immobilising the reptile than one that crushes the head. A snake with a crushed head will no doubt die ultimately whereas such injury to the brain will kill a mammal instantly and outright in the lowly snake whose nervous system is less specialised and capitalized, the body continues to move rapidly after the head is dead, since the spinal nerves that control movement still function. "Eha" commenting on its peculiarity in his immutable manner says,
"There is nothing new under the sun - it is only the boasted principle of Self-Government"!

In the struggle that follows the mongoose's abiding bite, the cobra lashes out and coils and uncoils itself so violently that often the mongoose is tumbled right over. Nor is the attacker passive, merely hanging on grimly - it jerks and worries the snake, and I am not at all sure that its tumbles are not voluntary.

Whether this is so or not, the snake gets twisted and often it is on its back for considerable portions of its length - it is then that the mongoose is able to jerk it about, for a snake, whose "legs" are its ribs, has little purchase on the earth when turned over on its back. Within a minute or two the snake's struggle becomes weaker and less effective and controlled - its spine has been injured, or else numbed for movement, in course of its desperate struggles. Thereafter, with its adversary rendered helpless by spinal injury, the mongoose has little trouble in despatching it.

In the course of many years, I have seen only three mongoose-cobra fights, all three staged by snake-charmers for the entertainment of a crowd of spectators - two of those cobras were quite impressive (though, of course, they had been rendered impotent by removal of their poison glands) but none of the mongooses were full-grown. Once I had a good fortune to witness a KITTEN killing a middle-sized wild cobra _ its tactics were similar to those of a mongoose except that it made free use of its forefeet and claws to hold the snake's head down.

I remember the first mongoose-cobra encounter I saw more clearly than I should for purely adventitious reasons. I was school boy then, and the "battle" was staged in the yard of our school. The cobra was small and thin, and the mongoose was almost full-grown. It was all over in a few seconds. The snake's back was actually broken very early so that the bones formed a sharp protruding angle beneath the skin. I remember how, when I pointed this as the main cause of quick killing, my form-master held me up to ridicule, to the loud delight of my fellows, and was most sarcastic over my powers of observations. His view was that the snake was killed by a single bite.

The other two cobras were much larger and heavier and the battle was somewhat protracted. I noticed in these fights (and in the encounter between that kitten and wild cobra, too) a spinal injury (or shock) sustained by the snake in the course of its furious struggles and in in the worrying it was subjected to, preceded its death - the spinal injury (or shock) was apparent in the sudden lack of coordination of the snake's movements even more than in the slackening or their tempo.

One last point. In every instance the mongoose sank its teeth into the snake's upper jaw, getting a hold over the snout and leaving the lower jaw hanging loose. In a snake too, it is the lower jaw that is moved when it bites but the cobra was unable to snap with its loose-hanging lower jaw. I do not know the reason for this.

Of course, it is possible that a full-grown mongoose may deal masterfully with a cobra and kill it in one crunching bite. It is also quite possible that a really large cobra may get the better of a rash mongoose in a fight. The more I see of wild animals, the less certain do I feel of knowledge of animal behaviour gained by the study of captives. However, this uncertainty is most acute and valid in the study of intelligence and social behaviour of an animal and perhaps captive creatures love and fight very much as they do when wild."

-M. Krishnan


This was first published on 24 August 1958 in The Sunday Statesman

#One photograph has not been reproduced here.