Asia’s Deadliest Snakes | BEASTLY

snakes they are one of the most fearsome creatures on the planet and asia is the hot spot where you are most likely to get bitten but which are the deadliest and should we be truly afraid international venom doctor brian fry comes fang to face on a mission to discover the killer cocktail of venom and violence needed for the crown of asia's deadliest snake this is a snake you would not want to get bit by from vipers and secrets cobras and coral snakes which one has the opportunity to be the perfect killer if you did get bitten by one of these you're dying screaming knowing the answer may one day save your life [Music] brian frye is one of the world's leading venom experts where most of us would flee he deliberately seeks out what a little danger he studies scorpions jellyfish and dragons but his passion is one of nature's most lethal reptiles snakes in asia it's estimated over a hundred thousand people a year die of snake bites but which among the continent snakes are directly responsible how do they kill and what can we do about it [Music] [Applause] to find out i'm going across asia to track down and rape its deadliest snakes to determine the ultimate killers i'll be considering several key factors opportunity aggressiveness strike ability the potency of their venom [Music] my first candidate is the reticulated python it's the longest and one of the world's most powerful snakes [Music] it kills mainly by suffocating prey in a death grip this enables it to take on animals larger than themselves possibly even humans [Music] so does the python size and power really make it the ultimate killer does it have the opportunity [Music] reticulated pythons can be found throughout southeast asia some of the largest are reportedly found in indonesia i've traveled to the island of bali in the heart of the country where i find pythons living amongst human population this certainly gives it the opportunity to be deadly as everywhere in asia snakes and people are in close proximity particularly in a ravine like this which is a perfect spot for a python there's lots of vegetation there's nice deep caves now could a child be taken by a python possibly not a small one like this this one's only about 12 13 feet a big one a 25 28 footer certainly could take and eat a child there have been reports of this but they're very rare and they're very difficult to substantiate so it seems that opportunity hasn't made pythons deadly to us what about its large size and power reticulated pythons can grow to a record-breaking 30 feet or so such a big snake can be much more of a handful than the one i saw by the river but they're rare these days european demand for their skins alone sees some hundreds of thousands killed per year these days the only sure place to find a big one is in the zoo he's a little bit grumpy today i would love to see one this big in the wild but most of the ones that we're going to find on this island are going to be much smaller probably around three to four meters or 12 to 14 feet one's this big you'd have to go to some of the islands like sumatra to still find ones like this obviously the python has the aggression to be a threat but the danger of facing a big one is slim but what about its mythical ability to constrict and swallow a human being whole ron lilly aka the snake man of bali is frequently called out to catch threatening pythons eleanor carter called him when she discovered a serial cat killer in her house it was about 4 30 a.m i think and i found the snake stretched across my dining room floor staring at my two full-grown cats who seemed quite mesmerized by the python and about to become breakfast a month earlier one of the neighbor's cats was not so lucky and was found constricted before the snake was chased away this x-ray shows where the cat could have looked like if the python had the chance to swallow it it's clear that the bones aren't broken just squeezed without breaking any bones it seems unlikely that even the largest python could make an adult human fit gotcha in fact we're more deadly to them than they are to us there's some handbag material on there if somebody killed it they know that there's a market there's a market for the meat they can certainly take the skin off and sell that so how much of a skin from this fetch for the local people i guess it's probably in the range of four or five dollars you're kidding me but that's a lot of money it's a week's wages for some people here well good i'm glad you got it everybody around the whole neighborhood is glad and i got that too that'd be the card owners yeah yeah [Music] in bali i discovered that by and large people got on with pythons there's even a meeting of snake enthusiasts every sunday where the public is invited to get to know the snakes [Music] [Applause] some pythons are even placid enough to be held by children it's fascinating that each individual has a different temperament just like us all in all pythons are really only at the beginning of our deadly scale that's because although they have the size crushing ability and opportunity they rarely attack people and they lack a key chemical weapon that some snakes have perfected venom asia is a hot spot for venomous snakes and the strength and delivery of their venom is a key factor in determining the region's deadliest [Music] what makes a snake venom so deadly is a unique cocktail of toxins found in it there are three main kinds of components hemotoxins cause blood clots and unstoppable bleeding you could bleed to death or even have heart failure [Music] cytotoxins destroy flesh which is why some people have amputations after being bitten neurotoxins attack the nervous system like nerve agents and chemical warfare they stop breathing through lethal paralysis snakes combine these different types of toxins and deadly combinations aim to incapacitate a victim long enough so they can be eaten although there are quite a few venomous snakes not all of them are deadly to us why the answer can be found in the western ghats of india [Music] covered in dripping wet rainforest this region is a haven for frogs and where there are frogs there are frog eating snakes [Music] the malabar pit viper possesses potent venom but how deadly is it to humans in order to find out we need to see them feed and they only hunt at night immobilizing is good enough particularly for something like a frog it's not a dangerous prey animal so in the case of these vipers the frog is quickly incapacitated what this demonstrates is that a snake's venom is prey specific for the malabar pit viper the type and small amount of venom it delivers is deadly to frogs but not to humans at worst its bite will give you painful swelling or a bruise so for the rest of my search for asia's deadliest snake i'm looking for candidates whose venom is toxic enough and delivered in large enough amounts to kill a human being like a murder detective also look out for other deadly clues like a suspect's aggressiveness opportunity and the means to strike in one deadly blow [Music] my search for asia's deadliest snake leads me to the mangroves of kedar in northern malaysia [Music] there's a potential candidate here that has venom as toxic as a cobras we're working the edge of the river banks here and it's a particularly good spot for a lot of venomous snakes during the day snakes love resting in high branches by the river it's a cool damp and shaded place so it's the perfect environment to find prey no cause for worry this isn't a venomous snake what a little beauty it's another python although it's lighter in color than the ones i found in indonesia look at that silver if it was bigger it might not be so eager to escape the snake i'm really looking for is proving rather elusive just when i was about to give up my current location i had paid it oh it's a big one the mangrove snake it's highly adaptable a voracious predator and has seriously potent venom but is it deadly enough to kill a human being they've got their fangs sitting in the very back here and then they chew the venom in rather than injecting it through the syringes like a cobra or a viper would these snakes have venom as potent as a cobras but they don't have very much of it and it's delivered much less efficiently to humans what they do is they live at the edge of the branches and wait for birds and because of that their venom is being evolutionarily selected to be much more potent on birds than it is on mammals i've had several bites by this kind of snake and what they do is they give you a splitting headache and they can affect your balance a little bit makes you a bit giddy so if i want to find asia's deadliest snake i'm going to have to look elsewhere [Music] my deadly quest leads me further into malaysia to a famous towers temple on the island of penang aptly called the snake temple it was established over 190 years ago at a time when there was only jungle around it [Music] there's a member of the congregation here armed not just with a venom that can cause heart failure but with another formidable weapon the temple viper it's so enjoyed the shelter given by the snake temple that it's made it its permanent home besides its toxic venom part of the temple viper's deadliness is due to the surveillance intelligence it gains from the two special pits on either side of its nose there's sensitive organs that detect heat many vipers have pit organs that give them an amazing heat sense this blue balloon is full of cold water and although it's put right in front of the snake it won't strike at it this red balloon is full of warm water like a soccer replay we can only see it properly when slowed down 20 times in this special camera but is the temple viper's heat sensing ability and toxic venom deadly to the snake temple visitors to find out i seek out the temple's chief custodian li meng soon so have tourists ever been bitten here yes previously there was no sign because twice as stories got bitten by the state when it touched okay that's why we put up the sign and what happened to them they went to the hospital okay and they were okay no no okay did they lose their fingers you might not die but you'll be in so much pain you'd wish you would die just to end it just kill me [Music] so even with its deadly abilities it seems that the temple viper may not be a man killer the only way to be absolutely certain is to see it feed [Music] i head deeper into penang southern jungles to find a site that's rumored to be a mecca for temple vipers this is a world war ii bunker system set into the middle of the malaysian jungle and it's remarkable habitat for deadly snakes because you have pristine environment over here but then you've got lots of artificial structure that provides cool areas for the snakes to hide in [Music] this bunker complex was built by the british for malaysia's defense in the late 1930s somewhere in this maze should be rooms that are just to the liking of the temple vipers the perfect place to find it feeding oh how cool is this there's nine snakes just in this one room and they're not trapped there's openings here's a really nice female temple viper during the day they'll just be sitting on the branches just quite content so you might say that the temple viper prays at night and it's in these conditions that the viper's special heat sense excels without lights these roosting birds would be invisible but with its temperature sensitive pits the temple viper can see them just as clearly as our thermal camera [Music] flighty birds require patient stalking but the temple viper also feeds on mice the temple viper's venom causes blood clotting and heart failure it's strong enough to knock out this rodent within just a few seconds hot-blooded mammal and cold-blooded killer are seen clearly contrasted how cool is that he's using those very long fangs to just walk along the mouse swallowing it headfirst she's trying to figure out what i am because i'm a huge heat signature to her i just want to stay nice and calm so she doesn't think that i'm a predator so where does the temple viper fit in the scales of deadliness it has large forward-mounted fangs that could penetrate deep into human flesh its blood-curdling venom causes clots and internal bleeding with a screamingly painful bite but because it releases only a moderate amount of venom and is geared towards prey like tiny rodents and birds it will affect your breathing but probably won't kill you unless you had a weak heart in fact extracts of temple viper venom containing neurotoxins are being used in anti-wrinkle cream [Music] my search for asia's deadliest snake has not been entirely straightforward sometimes i even get sidetracked [Music] while in penang i'm called out with a team of electricians who occasionally have snake trouble oh there's a nice golden tree snake or i should say was an ice golden tree snake oh wow so what would have happened when that snake touched that electricity that will trip the system especially this is suspected could it cause an explosion [Music] so there's a new twist on the idea of a deadly snake you have a snake that's able to take the power out of an entire region what a shame these are a snake that's totally harmless and right now it's basically snake jerky become satty of malaysia yeah a little bit of saute sauce and that'd be lovely [Music] some of asia's deadliest snakes are found not on land but at sea i'm continuing my journey to southern indonesia to find a particularly beautiful but highly venomous species [Music] i found that standing on my head looking into cracks is the best way to catch up with this snake [Music] [Applause] this is a banded secret it has tiny fangs but is armed with neurotoxic venom more powerful than a cobras we know it's deadly to humans because fishermen have been killed removing them from nets the sea crate hunts for fish around coral reefs its venom is so fast acting and deadly to us because it must instantly immobilize its prey otherwise the fish will just swim off with scuba sports becoming more popular do divers fear these snakes well there's only one way to find out dive terrorist monty sarongan from jakarta kindly volunteers to get up close and personal with the bandit secret i've just caught they're sweethearts they're nice i drive more than 1000 dives but i always avoid this thing they're very nicely tempered see they're not even trying to bite oh god so is this the first time you've ever held a snake yeah she's the first time last time no no no no don't say that i didn't mean it that way you know anything about their venom do you know how their venom works it paralyzes your ability to breathe okay so you can't inflate your lungs as a diver you'd of course know all about the importance of air so the way these kill is that they paralyze your ability to breathe but that's what they do to the fish that they paralyze the fish gills as well as the fish mussels okay and then they swallow there are bites on record but they're very very rare but usually it's the person's fault they're trying to kill the snake and the snake is just trying to defend themselves it's not that they can't kill you it says that they have such a nice temper that they don't want to bite but if you did get bitten by one of these you'd be in real trouble yeah how's your heart [Laughter] my god thank you very much thank you that's very remarkable experience you know go have a beer the banded sea crate has another deadly trick up its sleeve it can come back onto land in fact it has to in order to breed this puts it in direct contact with people giving it the opportunity to kill but oddly deaths are rare on this beach in bali in fact banded sea crates here are not feared but worshiped [Music] in the bully hindu religion the secrets have a central place one of the kings has a secret as a belt and it's of no coincidence that you find them in places like this this is a perfect place for a secret unlike the true sea snakes they have to return to the land this dramatically increases the likelihood of human contact yet despite the fact that hundreds if not thousands of people every single day in bali encounter these snakes bites are almost unheard of and dusts are even rare that's because they have such a sweet gentle personality and it's a good illustration how the concept of deadliness has to include the relative personality of the animal itself in my search for asia's deadliest snake there's one candidate i've always wanted to meet the fatally beautiful blue coral snake it's been a dream of mine for over 10 years to find and milk the venom of a blue coral snake in the wild they reportedly have the longest venom glands of any snake with the potential to deliver lethal quantities of toxin on reputation alone the snakes near the top of my list but i've got to be sure they live in leif litter and under mossy bark and occasionally sightings are reported when gardeners clean up the mess from fallen trees in places such as golf courses i never realized how good golf buggies were for finding deadly snakes they're ideal for my equipment and my clubs the number six snake hook and the number nine columns [Music] you can see so much from the open cot and with my snake and caddy ewon i set out for what should be a good round [Music] false alarm over the water obstacle it was only a monitor lizard and then we thought we saw something glisten in the grass the method of capture we use is fast and designed to be the least stressful for the snake oh that is a stunner to milk the blue coral snake's venom i need to be careful not to get bitten while putting only light pressure on it oh look at that oh no oh that is frightening that is so much more venom than i expected i suspect it's going to be stupidly toxic i have a feeling this is going to be one of the most toxic venoms i've ever studied the main danger of this snake is that in addition to having lots of venom we know it's really toxic because people have died from it and there's no antivenom there is absolutely no treatment for this snake oh this is so a snake you would not want to get bit by symptoms from a bite with this kind of snake it's going to be the classic neurotoxic where it's going to paralyze your diaphragm if you can't move your diaphragm muscle that's the one that inflates your lungs no diaphragm no lungs no air no oxygen no life besides finding the deadly blue coral snake in the wild my other biggest dream is to study its infamous venom glands at the raffles museum in singapore i get my chance curator kelvin lim invites me behind the scenes to dissect one of their preserved specimens and discover its deadly secrets it's a very rare snake so it's going to be a very unusual animal to find who would see this in singapore and where would they be seeing it oh members of the public okay people who go jogging in the forest parks and they know this snake yeah it's a very beautiful snake so it's hard to miss if you do see one [Music] so what we've got is just behind the eye we've got the normal venom gland but it's very very small and there's not much muscle attached so it's not really being used for anything but then we've got these two extraordinary thin ducts running along in here and then we have these two absolutely extraordinary venom glands that go all the way down here on the body it's a an amazing delivery mechanism and i've never seen any snake like this in the world this is an absolutely unique animal these snakes are going to have a lot more venom than you'd anticipate just by looking at the small size of the head with these kind of glands it's not as efficient of a delivery mechanism as the big glands of a cobra but what we do know is that they are lethal deaths are on record from these snakes it's a big adrenaline rush for me to find and study this snake but it's not only about that there's a real purpose here because without studying such deadly venom we can never make a cure the antagonic and there's the chance we discover really useful medical compounds ironically antivenoms are in plentiful supply for the deadlier snakes i'm looking for next but whether they can really cure or if you can get to them in time is another question [Music] some of the snakes we've seen so far they have some of the combination of arsenal versus opportunity but not quite there the ones we're going after now they have it all and that's what makes them asia's most deadly shaeful abdul aziz family has a tradition of working with and breeding snakes he tours all over malaysia with a carefully planned show he does it to make a living but also because he wants people to understand snakes better today's star is the king cobra the biggest venomous snake in the world delivering record amounts of venom it can cause death in just 15 minutes in the wild it usually hides from people despite the fact it is near the top of my deadly list the highlight of shape or show is a deceptively simple but highly dangerous kiss to the head of the cobra several performers have been killed attempting to do this same trick as a bite to the head is almost always fatal it's recently been discovered that there are several distinct types of king cobra across asia i want to study the differences in their venom and schaefel gave me the opportunity to get some from this awesome malaysian species the lethal dose for a king cobra is probably somewhere between 30 and 50 milligrams on the human in one milking here we got about 15 to 18 times the amount that it would take to kill one person because we've learned that there are several distinct species of king cobra it's possible that a study of the venom from each species will produce new insights into why venom varies and possibly into new compounds useful to medicine sadly these magnificent snakes are under threat in all areas of asia but in the southwest of india at the agambi rainforest reserve the king cobras are still king my guide gowery took me there to see the work being carried out at the reserves research station it hopes to help the king cobras and humans live side by side [Applause] the researchers have put my new radio tracking tags into two adult king cobras in order to learn how they roam within the rainforest the devices weigh a mere 25 grams which does not hinder a nearly 10 foot long snake this is why we came to the agumbi rainforest for beautiful creatures like this i don't know who's more entranced me with her or her with me we're not taking her eyes off each other and she's following my every movement see look how reactive she is king cobras are extremely common in this area more so than pretty much anywhere else i've been to the point where they're getting snake call outs here about once every day and a half two days which is extraordinary part of it is the cultural aspect where they respect the animals here in fact they even worship them and how could you not look at this creature [Music] and sure enough a call came through later that day on the king cobra hotline to remove a snake they've been bothering a dog in someone's garden [Music] a friend says the snake came through that forest there and it was very close to the house and the dogs started chasing him dog with the death wish [Music] oh it's a good-sized one [Music] yeah yeah get the baggage get the bag up whoa that's huge yeah that's that's good that's easy even though a bite from a fully grown cobra like this could kill you within minutes the locals have a calm respect for the snake but it's important to get your bagging technique spot on he needs coffee i don't let's go the next day another king cobra call out this one is not quite as feisty and gives us a better chance to get close okay yes yes come it's a beautiful female sweetie she is just a beauty so king cobra's venom is primarily neurotoxic and they inject huge amounts of venom so what they do is they feed on other snakes that's their specialty and they don't want to have anything to do with people it doesn't want to be here it doesn't want to have anything to do with humans and that goes to another major element of our definition of what is deadly is the opportunity these snakes don't want the opportunity to bite a person they just want the opportunity to be left alone [Music] there he goes there he goes look at that asia has lots of snakes but it also has lots of people that's going to bring snakes and people into direct conflict with each other unfortunately with disastrous consequences for both to find my next candidate for asia's deadliest snake i head back to indonesia i'm after a snake whose venomous bite cripples agricultural workers especially coffee and tea pickers who spend long hours in the plantations [Music] the green tree viper a bite from it on the finger can lead to amputation with its venom and clear opportunity could this snake be the deadliest of the lot not quite but very close these are actually one of the most medically hazardous snakes in all of asia they're not likely to kill you they might make you wish you're gonna die but the problem is that they're economic death imagine you're a coffee worker and your entire livelihood is driven by your hands your hands swell up like a surgical glove for two months during peak harvest season you're not gonna be able to work and you're probably gonna lose your job that's the major problem with these snakes so it shows that deadliness is more than just the ability to kill it's very easy for people to be bitten by these eggs because you can't see it they've got a counter shading where they're dark green on the top but then bright lime green underneath now imagine a leaf with the sunlight coming down a leaf's going to be dark on the top and bright colored on the bottom they fit in just perfect and they're just sitting there waiting so someone won't see when they reach in they're just going to think it's another branch reach in and grab a coffee bean bang often people are going to be bitten when they're at this kind of height so in addition to hand bites you have a very dangerous bite to the face or the throat because it's able to enter the bloodstream much faster and a more concentrated wave of venom as well as something like swelling up the throat and the person can't breathe the mortality is low with these animals but the morbidity the injury is very very high collectively the green tree vipers account for more snake bites than any other kind of snake in all of asia unfortunately for the malaysian plantation workers the green tree viper is not the deadliest viper that calls their workplace home one of the areas where people and snakes really come in contact is in palm oil plantations like this the snake involved is the malayan pit viper and now we're getting really serious the malayan pit viper it has extremely potent venom that causes internal bleeding this snake also has two other key factors that make it asia's fourth deadliest snake opportunity and a really nasty attitude in northern malaysia it's responsible for hundreds of snake bites annually some leading to death the way that malayan pit vipers get their prey is that they sit right at the edge of game trails and then just white they're the venomous equivalent of a landmine they just sit there waiting waiting waiting waiting bang and then it's explode up like other pit vipers it has this ability to see your heat just like this camera so did you think i was actually gonna do that i'm crazy but i'm not stupid we're just using an empty boot which is very light so it's not hurting the snake but allows us to demonstrate what would actually happen to one of the workers here at the palm plantation when am a lion pit piper bites a person initially it's just numb they feel nothing but then the pain slowly creeps in and becomes absolutely agonizing while the flesh is destroyed hazma bente ibrahim was bitten by a malaysian pit viper as she picked spinach in her garden she was bitten on the finger but survived very painful i feel like numbness then my hand was swollen and after one month my fingers become dark hazma had to have further operations to straighten her withered finger and has lasting damage 20 years later can you can you bend it no not completely bad hazma's wound confirmed my view that non-lethal bites can still cause years of trouble but those of deadlier snakes are more horrific still in chennai india i was again on their trail [Applause] in order to understand snake fight you need to understand the local culture and the only way to understand the local culture is to go there and live [Applause] many people in india use mats to sleep on the floor potentially putting them in the path of our third most potent killer [Music] the common crite is extremely venomous it's been said one bite is enough to kill two dozen men it is often found around human habitation and feeds at night on rats and other rodent eating snakes many incidents happen when the crate crawls under people's sleeping mats biting them when they turn over what's truly frightening is that the bite isn't painful and death is almost certain without treatment the common crate may be one of nature's ultimate silent killers but it's got nothing on the final deadly snakes on my list here we are in the heart of india on the trail of our last two snakes these two snakes are by far the most awesome yet the most deadly of all the snakes we've seen not only do they account for more deaths in india but they actually account for more deaths across all of asia our second most deadly snake is the russell's viper it has the opportunity a bad temper and venom that will kill you by destroying your blood it's bite is so quick you'd have very little time to react to it it's known to kill thousands of people every year in india and even if you survive it it causes devastating wounds knows the consequences only too well my friend and snake expert gowri helps me understand what a profound effect the viper's bite has had on her life when she got beaten the pain was very very deep and you know it's like a burning sensation she was really scared and she thought she's going to lose her life she was worried about the family who look after them and what happens if she dies you know after getting bitten charada needed 30 ampoules of antivenom and was bleeding profusely a classic symptom of russell's viper bite although her wound did not go gangrenous it still hasn't healed properly after four months if it doesn't heal or doesn't uh help her in any way she'll lose her life she'll she'll commit suicide and she'll ask her husband to kill her please of course he won't he won't that's the great thing here and he says no i will make sure that you'll be okay so this is a russell's viper in the indian subcontinent this is by far the most medically important snake the only reason it's not our top snake is because it has a fairly restricted range but in india this is the problem animal here nobody likes a russell's viper and for good reason too they hang out in leaf litter around palm oil plantations and other agriculture uses and that's where most of the bites are occurring and what happens is that it has an absolutely devastating effect on the blood chemistry so unlike the cobras which affect the nerves these guys are taking out your blood you're dying screaming basically with the russell's viper i cannot think of a worse night to get bit by in india one group of people is very much on the front line when it comes to bites by venomous snakes like the russell's viper they are the self-appointed teams of snake rescuers who remove snakes from people's homes i catch up with the tamil nadu group and was shocked to see some of their working practices captured on their amateur video here in asua one of the team grabs the notorious russell's viper with his bare hands again with this cobra working with your bare hands is a sure way to get bit i decided to take part in their training with professional herpetologist jerry martin who's been working with snakes in india all his life unfortunately with cities growing everywhere there's a lot of snakes coming into houses and this niche of the snake rescuer has been filled in most small towns and cities all over the country but the protocols that they follow the equipment that they use and quite often the mindsets that they possess are just not safe but whenever you have an audience and you're catching a snake that you know 1.3 billion people are scared of you feel really great it's this much is more that basically goes to your head hello darling the safe way to handle a snake is at arm's length using special tools to hold the snake gently but firmly a black bag gives the snake a place to hide fold and hook perfect but the fabric must be in good condition even so a snake can easily get its fangs through the bag no no not your hand tongs yeah perfect unfortunately for one of the team the advice had come too late the snake's bite produced just two small pinpricks of blood less than 30 minutes later the snake handler was paralyzed and fighting for his life a victim of asia's deadliest snake [Applause] robin bernard bitten by aisha's number one killer snake soon starts vomiting and feeling short of breath his friend rushes him to the hospital on the back of a motorbike i was drowsy or something i even felt the smell in my mouth i tasted the venom at the first or second minute i felt my i'm losing my eyesight it was all flashy thing the bus headed towards us was all white that's because your pupils were relaxing and then that meant more light was coming in because when you die your pupils don't get small they actually get big robin loses consciousness as the cobra's neurotoxin cripples his ability to breathe somehow even though he is dying he holds on to the bike i just said please don't stop the bike rush towards the hospital weaving through the traffic they reach the hospital in record time nearly 30 vials of antivenom are used to negate the snake bites effects after four to five hours i gained my conscious i saw my wife and child over there i answered them i'll be back don't worry robin was bitten by a spectacled cobra its venom contains a powerful neurotoxin mixed together for the cytotoxin that destroys flesh paralysis and death may result in under an hour [Music] though lucky to survive robin has drastic damage to the hand where the spectacled cobra bit him over a month ago it's still not certain if he will keep his hand and it reinforces why bites from the most deadly snakes are life-altering even if you survive how do you feel about it now where an animal that you've tried to rescue has almost killed you no anger it's the nature of the snake to bite [Music] if there's one person who knows spectacle cobras all too well it's snake expert rom whitaker i went to meet him and the snakes in his garden didn't see any snakes though no i didn't say anything but it looks like good spot yeah nearly 40 years ago rom pioneered anti-venom production in india together with the ruler people of tamil nadu big cobra that'd be what a two meter animal or even longer that's big cobra cold breath oh there we go [Music] and they're just so tuned into movement the snake is not taking its eyes off me just following everything i do having seen robin's hand i need no reminder of what a spectacled cobra can do but it's obvious this snake is wary of me too the whole point of the cobras hood is warning so on the back of it there's these false eye spots that make it look like it literally has eyes on the back of its head while on the front of it there's also file size spots that make it look like it's a very very large head so they're trying to make themselves look big and intimidating so the cobras really have it all they have big fangs big venom yields very very potent venom and also the opportunity they're extremely common around people's houses because of all the rodents if you leave a lot of refuge around you're going to have a cobra problem so taking all the variables into account this the cobra is the deadliest snake in asia every year across asia snakes from the cobra genus killed tens of thousands of people and yet perhaps with simple awareness many of these bites would never happen people would just carry a flashlight at night it's ridiculous to say oh they should wear footwear in india it's not going to happen these are people who work in a wet rice field give me a break who wears footwear just keep piles of bricks and piles of tiles and stuff away from your place that's going to attract snakes though it's the deadliest snake in asia in india the spectacled cobra is a religious icon and protected by law on my journey across asia i have indeed come across some of its deadliest snakes [Music] but they're also the ones i find the most fascinating and perfectly adapted to their needs their venom is deadly to the animals they eat and has become ever more toxic to counter the resistance of the prey when we get in the way we encounter this deadliness but to a snake there is nothing more deadly than man you

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Keywords: amazing stories, amazing story, barcroft animals, barcroft tv, documentary, Barcroftmediaanimalstag, Beastly, Truly, Asia’s Deadliest Snakes, Snakes, Asia, venom doctor, Bryan Fry, venom, Singapore, vipers, sea krait, cobra, coral snake, Off The Fence, August 2020, LFM632, reptiles, snake handler, snake attack, snake bite

Id: eyOecqafZzs

Length: 50min 7sec (3007 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 30 2020