Cape Cobra

The Cape cobra (Naja nivea), also called the yellow cobra, is a moderate-sized, highly venomous species of cobra inhabiting a wide variety of biomes across southern Africa, including arid savanna, fynbos, bushveld, desert, and semidesert regions.

The species is diurnal and is a feeding generalist, preying on a number of different species and carrion. Predators of this species include birds of prey, honey badgers, and various species of mongooses. The Cape cobra is also known as the geelslang (yellow snake) and bruinkapel (brown cobra) in South Africa. Afrikaans-speaking South Africans also refer to the Cape cobra as koperkapel (copper cobra), mainly because of a rich yellow colour variation. This species has no known subspecies.

Etymology

Naja nivea was first described by Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus in 1758. The generic name naja is a Latinisation of the Sanskrit word nāgá (नाग) meaning "cobra". The specific epithet nivea is derived from the Latin words either nix or nivis meaning "snow" or niveus meaning "snowy" or "snow-white". The connection with snow is obscure, but might have been suggested by discolouration of the first preserved specimens received by taxonomists in Europe.

Taxonomy

Naja is a genus in the family Elapidae. Linnaeus first described Naja nivea in 1758. He originally assigned the binomial name Coluber niveus, but some 10 years afterwards, Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti described the genus of true cobras under the name Naja. In 2007, Wüster et al. partitioned the genus Naja into four separate subgenera on the basis of various factors such as lineage, morphology, and diet. They placed Naja nivea in the subgenus Uraeus, the African nonspitting cobras - Cape cobra (N. nivea), Egyptian cobra (N. haje), snouted cobra (N. annulifera), Anchieta's cobra (N. anchietae), Arabian cobra (N. arabica), and Senegalese cobra (N. senegalensis).

Description

The Cape cobra is a medium-sized species of cobra. Mature specimens are typically about 1.2 to 1.4 m (3.9 to 4.6 ft) long, but may grow up to 1.6 m (5.2 ft) in length. Males are slightly larger than females. The longest specimen on record is a male from Aus, Namibia, measured 1.88 m (6.2 ft) long. Another very large specimen was also a male found in De Hoop Nature Reserve with a total length of 1.86 metres (6.1 ft).

Cape cobras vary widely in colouration, from yellow through golden brown to dark brown and even black. In addition, individuals show a varying degree of black or pale stippling and blotches, and although colour and marking are geographically related, observing virtually all colour varieties is possible at one location. For example, the Kalahari Desert specimens in Botswana and Namibia are usually more consistently yellow than the more southerly populations, but at De Hoop, and other specific locations in the Western Cape, all colour variations have been recorded. Juvenile specimens generally have conspicuously dark throats extending down the belly for the width of a dozen or so ventral scales. The colour fades during the first year or two of life, but while it lasts, it commonly leads laymen to confuse the juvenile Cape cobra with the Rinkhals spitting cobra.

Distribution and habitat