Cobras of Thailand

King Cobra - Ophiophagus hannah from Kaeng Krachan national park
King Cobra - Ophiophagus hannah
King Cobra - Ophiophagus hannah from Kaeng Krachan national park, Thailand

Without a doubt, the cobras are the most charismatic species of all snakes in Thailand, if not of all snakes in the world. There’s something about them that make the cobras the ultimate dream of many field herping enthusiasts. Thailand is home to 3 species of true cobras and of course the King Cobra which is in a separate genus. The rumoured future splitting of the King Cobra species might result that multiple King Cobra species are found within Thailand. That is purely to tease the field herpers. As if finding one species of King Cobra in the wild isn’t hard enough…
Maybe the ultimate dream, but for many field herpers that come to Southeast Asia the dream of finding a King Cobra in the wild won’t come true. In the future it will mean you have to go after each one of these species to make your lifelist complete – an even more impossible challenge…

We consider ourselves extremely fortunate to have encountered all the cobra species that are currently known to occur in Thailand. The Equatorial Spitting Cobra, Naja sumatrana is arguably the hardest of them all to find in the wild, and took us quite a while to add to our life list.

Cobras – Family Elapidae

True Cobras

  1. Naja kaouthia – Monocled Cobra
  2. Naja siamensis – Indochinese Spitting Cobra
  3. Naja sumatrana – Equatorial Spitting Cobra

King Cobras

  1. Ophiophagus hannah – King Cobra