This Mozambique spitting cobra, nestled snugly in a drain, met its match in the form of Universal Reptiles snake catcher Jason Arnold.
He recently caught the snake in Clare Estate in KwaZulu-Natal.
Arnold told News24 that a family’s gardener spotted a “large brown snake” in the yard.
The homeowner saw the snake’s tail disappearing next to a pot plant that was perched on a drain.
Arnold said he could tell from the description it was most likely a spitting cobra.
“Drain situations are never easy,” he said.
He explained that snakes often move down the drainage system and pop out anywhere along the way, making them hard to capture.
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But luck was on his side.
The drain was blocked so Arnold was able to flush it out with a hosepipe.
Once the snake was out of the drain it was pretty “straightforward and easy”.
“I caught the snake within about 20 seconds, but trying to get the snake to come up, and not to go down the pipe, that’s what was tricky,” he said.
The female Mozambique spitting cobra measured 1.3m.
“It’s definitely not an unusual place for spitting cobras because they eat frogs, so they associate the smell of water with that of frogs,” he said.
Arnold added that Mozambique spitting cobras are dormant for a large portion of the year, only appearing for two to three months each year.
“During these relatively short-lived activity periods, they are extremely abundant and active, and sightings of them are so frequent that they make up a large portion of our rescues.”
The cobra has since been released into a nature reserve.
