{"id":273625,"date":"2026-02-04T13:47:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T13:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/273625\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T13:47:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T13:47:07","slug":"its-nearly-1-5-metres-wide-and-55cm-high-and-houses-one-of-the-longest-most-venomous-animals-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/273625\/","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s nearly 1.5 metres wide and 55cm high and houses one of the longest, most venomous animals in the world"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The female <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/reptiles\/king-cobra-facts-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">king cobra<\/a> is the only snake species to build a nest for her eggs. In the Western Ghats of South India, a female starts constructing her nest in the dry month of April, just before the rains arrive in May.<\/p>\n<p>She chooses a well-drained spot, often below a large tree or a clump of bamboo. She then spends several days gathering leaves into a pile, sweeping them together with her body, and carrying them in a tight coil \u2013 a huge feat which requires enormous amounts of energy.<\/p>\n<p>When she has enough leaves, she begins compacting the pile into a waterproof chamber by repeatedly crawling over it (a completed nest stands nearly a metre high). She then burrows into the heap to create a cup-like hollow deep within, in which she lays a clutch of anywhere between 15 and 50 leathery eggs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Female king cobras often stay on their nests for the entire incubation period of 75\u2013100 days, their mere presence offering excellent protection.<\/p>\n<p>How big are king cobra nests?<\/p>\n<p>Nests can measure up to 55 cm  high at the centre and 140 cm  wide at the base.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The female king cobra is the only snake species to build a nest for her eggs. In the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[85,46,141,386],"class_list":["post-273625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}