| 1 | King cobra |
Location: Indian subcontinent, southeast Asia.
King cobras are top of the snake food chain, and no other snake can deny it. Banded wolf snakes, Indian cobras, Himalayan keelbacks, and mangrove snakes are part of the wide menu they have to choose from. King cobras eat snakes almost exclusively, occasionally dabbling in clouded monitors.
Their range is huge, so the favourites vary by region. For example, a study in the Western Ghats of India found that oriental ratsnake was their main prey, with the Malabar pit viper close behind.
The king cobra can go months without a meal, thanks to a slow metabolism. But that doesn’t mean they won’t lick up snake after snake when they can; one was observed eating 82 snakes over a single winter. In 1947, a 3.66 meter king cobra was reported trying to eat a 2.79 meter reticulated python – this may have been the single largest snake-on-snake prey in recorded history. It’s not plain sailing either, as reticulated pythons are muscular and try to wrestle them off.
King cobras are such a snake vacuum cleaner that without them, the populations would probably get seriously out of control. To prevent escape, the king cobra has incredibly strong jaws, the most powerful bite force of any living snake by scientific measurement (the saltwater crocodile is the strongest of all animals).
| 2 | Eastern kingsnake |
Location: USA.
The eastern kingsnake (Lampropeltis getula) eats meals like the white-footed mouse, five-lined skinks, and the eggs of northern bobwhite quail. But other snakes make up a larger proportion. Lampropeltis getula has a happy blessing for a snake – natural resistance to other snake venom. They’re born with this resistance, hence why they can swallow a full, overflowing venom gland and not suffer. It likely involves immune system antibodies, as when mice were injected with kingsnake blood, they too gained resistance to cottonmouth venom.
It’s simple evolution, as resistant kingsnakes would have been far more likely to survive and have children. It probably wasn’t gradual; it was probably such a powerful protection that once a single snake evolved it, the floodgates opened and those genes spread rapidly.
Eastern kingsnakes can reach 153cm, and can thus fit plenty of snakes inside. Despite being venom resistant, they take no precautions; their instinct is to bite other snakes by their jaws, clamping down to prevent a defensive strike. Lampropeltis getula has eaten too many snakes to list, but they include cottonmouths, ringneck snakes, eastern garter snakes, northern watersnakes, and massasaugas.
| 3 | Mussurana (Clelia clelia) |
Location: south and central America.
This South American snake often swallows its prey alive so that they’re still slithering around in its belly. They have no reservations about swallowing snakes larger than they are, such a 50cm mussurana that ate a 65cm spotted cat-eye snake in 2017. The cat-eye snake became bunched up in the snake’s stomach like an accordion, with the tip of its tail still sticking out of its mouth. The cat-eyed snake itself had just swallowed a frog, which was still bouncing around inside.
Mussuranas reach long lengths of 2.1 metres, and their domains are green humid rainforests. They eat snakes almost exclusively, with the occasional lizard. Every iconic rainforest snake you can think of, Clelia clelia preys on it: boa constrictor, South American bushmasters, fer-de-lance, hognosed pitvipers and black-necked coralsnakes are all confirmed.
After swallowing a snake, mussuranas will sometimes do a death roll like a crocodile to finish it off. Ambush and constriction is their main method of hunting.
| 4 | Eastern indigo snake |
Location: southeast USA.
The eastern indigo snake is one of America’s longest, reaching 280cm as the confirmed record. Those centimetres go to one purpose – swallowing and digesting other snakes. The eastern indigo snake has a flexible diet, with one wacky meal including a dead shark. But a massive 2010 study found 47 species on its menu, which included 9 mammals, 4 turtles, 3 birds, and 24 snakes. 185 prey were observed by headcount, and 91 (49%) of those were snakes.
The eastern indigo snake lacks venom or constriction powers. Its strategy is to slither after a snake at charging speed, grab it, and chew it to death. Eastern indigo snakes are poor at capturing fast-moving small prey, so this means that they skip lizards almost completely while still eating their slithery scaled cousins.
Eastern indigo snakes regularly eat eastern ribbon snakes, pygmy rattlesnakes, scarlet snakes, and ring-necked snakes. Most impressively, they’re capable of eating eastern diamondback rattlesnakes up to 1 meter long. They must have resistance to venom as well.
| 5 | Malaysian blue coral snake |
Location: south-east Asia.
The Malaysian blue coral snake has the claim to fame of speed. Its venom is extraordinarily fast, killing a human in as little as 5 minutes, and this comes in use with its snake rivals. Its serpent prey can be paralysed almost instantly, shielding it from a vicious comeback bite as long as its own bite lands true. This paralysis is accomplished by a unique toxin called calliotoxin, found in no other snake (that we know of, there’s probably a couple more in the jungle).
This species particularly focuses on the babies of king cobras. Weirdly, Calliophis bivirgatus specialises in fast-moving snakes – a strange niche for anyone to get into, but probably a consequence of the paralysing venom, as it’s the only one with a chance of success.
The Malaysian blue coral snake adheres to the old rule of bright colours being highly dangerous. It’s one of Thailand’s more beautiful snakes, with a bright red head and tail, and a body of electric and deep sea blue.
| 6 | Snake-eater wolf snake |
Location: Thailand.
The snake-eater wolf snake only became its own species in 2009, becoming the 191st Thai snake species. It was separated from its relative Ruhstrat’s wolf snake, the difference being that Lycodon ophiophagous primarily eats snakes. This is a black and white snake with a sleek head and beady black eyes, and a long snout.
This snake-eater is only known from Thailand. Lam Ru waterfall in Khao Lak-Lamru National Park is one confirmed habitat. It likes dense forests, particularly along small streams, and is a tree dweller, slithering along thin, fragile branches with ease.
Being a recent discovery, their favourite snakes to eat in the wild are unknown, but in captivity they happily gobbled up radiated ratsnakes, rainbow mud snakes, red-necked keelbacks, and Indo-Chinese ratsnakes. They also ate the golden tree snake; this is another forest snake, so it’s odds on for being one of Lycodon ophiophagous‘ wild staples. Golden tree snakes have the power to fly, so they might want to watch their landing spot from now on.
| 7 | Mulga snake |
Location: Australian outback.
Mulga snakes like the taste of other snakes, and in the parched Australian outback, there’s plenty to choose from. This is one of Australia’s longest venomous snakes, sometimes reaching 3 meters. Mulga snake venom isn’t the worst in the world, but the catch is that they inject a huge amount, normally 150mg. They’re an apex predator which is only hunted by birds of prey.
Whether they have venom resistance hasn’t been researched much, but they’re definitely resistant to northern brown snake venom, one of their top prey, which normally causes paralysis. They’re also immune to their own species’ venom, showing no ill effects.
A 1987 study found that 51% of their diet was reptiles, with 24% mammals, and a decent percentage are snakes. Confirmed serpents on their list include brown tree snakes, speckled brown snakes, northern brown snakes, crowned snakes, and Gould’s hooded snakes. They also eat eastern brown snakes, but this species turns the tables and is moderately resistant to their venom. Nature is fighting back, and evolution is constantly rebalancing. Another weird meal of the mulga snake is magpie goose eggs.
| 8 | Eastern coral snake |
Location: southeast USA.
As of 1996, eastern coral snakes had been observed eating 21 families of snakes, and the list has only grown since then. They have a neurotoxic venom for paralysing smaller snakes extremely quickly, so that they don’t strike back in self defence. Eastern coral snakes measure 80cm, and they wisely stick to snakes of about 50cm. These include the scarlet snake, a secretive burrower, the rough green snake, a grass lover, and younger mud snakes, a dweller of swamps. They also eat the tiny Brahminy’s blind snakes and Florida crowned snake.
They even eat scarlet kingsnakes, which occasionally eats snakes itself. You could theoretically have the once in a lifetime scenario of a snake within a snake within a snake.
Eastern coral snakes are sometimes spotted rummaging through fallen leaves, searching for burrowing snakes. However, they’re not immune to predators themselves. Eastern coral snakes are sometimes eaten by American bullfrogs, which grip them with an unbreakable hold, and drag them into the water to swallow.
| 9 | Banded krait |
Location: south-east Asia.
A banded krait bite will kill 1-10% of humans if left untreated, so for a snake weighing 3-5 pounds, there’s no chance. This is one of Asia’s many krait species, closely related to the many-banded krait (Bungarus multicinctus), or Malayan krait (Bungarus candidus). This one is separated by its yellow scales, and its snake obsessed diet. Bungarus fasciatus has been recorded eating…
-Checkered keelbacks, sunbeam snakes, common catsnakes.
-Rainbow watersnakes, Tonkin pitvipers, Russell’s vipers.
-Indochinese ratsnakes, oriental ratsnakes, buff-striped keelbacks.
They even scavenge dead snakes like crows, including a red-tailed pipe snake which had been mortally wounded by a rice harvesting machine. Another banded krait was run over in the process of swallowing a red-tailed bamboo pitviper, not realising the treacherous location it had chosen. They don’t have a free reign, as banded kraits are hunted and swallowed by the king cobra.
When hunting snakes, banded kraits stick to two rules. They only swallow after the venom has killed them, and they always swallow by the head.
| 10 | Painted coral snake |
Location: northern Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil.
Also called Micrurus corralinus, this South American snake measures 65-85cm, and specialises in smaller burrowing snakes. Its meals include the military ground snake and Neuwied’s false fer-de-lance, both measuring 50cm. It eats many blind worm snakes, which it drags out of the soil, including Brongersma’s worm snake and Ternetz’s blind snake.
This snake-eater varies by location. One study found that snakes made up 8.6% of its diet, but a study in southern Brazil’s Atlantic Forest arrived at 52%. Coral snakes are nearly all venomous, and Micrurus corralinus has a treacherous neurotoxic venom, ultimately killing its snake prey via respiratory paralysis. The main toxin classes are three-finger toxins and phospholipase A2. As the venom infiltrates its body and causes a neuromuscular blockade, the snake loses muscle control and the power to escape, or even bite back.
The painted coral snake acts differently with lizards, biting and then letting them go while they succumb. With snakes, they never relinquish their grip until death, and only then swallow them.