chandigarh the snake rescue season is in full swing but experienced personnel dealing with reptiles keep a watchful eye when encountered at close quarters by a deviant character of the highlyvenomous spectacled cobra were the bites not so toxic and potent such feisty cobras may well have been labelled pseudocobras as they just dont raise their hoods in classic fashion to stand halferect or hiss loudly like pressure cookers nearly done with the dinners potatoesits not that such cobras cant inflate their hoods its just that their tactics to escape or confront a human are different what such deviant specimens do instead is that they keep their hood deflated stick low to the ground like a prowling submarine maintain a menacing silence display quicksilver movements and are more than ready to bite hard and take repeated jabs on certain occasions when cornered by the rescuer the cobra don can resort to an offensivedefence tactic by chasing the rescuer a very rare phenomenon in serpents when faced with such slippery customers snake rescuers work doubly hard to avoid bites and bag the cobra quickly as it does not present the standard immobile position caused by inflation of the ribs leads to hissing and the hood flaring outawardwinning snake expert nikhil sanger has dealt with thousands of reptiles he estimates that such tricky cobras are encountered in 10 of the cobras he rescuesi caught one such cobra of 55 feet recently the cobra was black and silvery and shone as if boot polish had been applied to it it took me three dangerous attempts to rescue it from a house compound as it twice escaped my snake hook this one was fast like a rat snake silent and made repeated bids to bite me it just would not enter the snake bag i had positioned for its entry and capture even after i finally managed to capture it and place it in the enclosure at my home pending release in the jungle the cobra maintained a menacing look and did not hiss once or inflate its hood sanger who was bitten by a cobra in 2014 and was hospitalised for three days in a neardeath encounter told toiwhen cobras inflate hoods they do not prefer to bite but resort to hissing to warn humans or predators like mongoosestricitys snake rescue veteran salim khan says cobras displaying such aggressive behaviour are not normally encountered most of the time when i confront a cobra it stands halfup and inflates the hood but people entertain myths about cobras after seeing african hissing cobras on discovery channel people believe that indian cobras too will spit venom at them when they hiss but this is not true the cobra is in fact being good to humans and is just warning them to keep away so that the reptile does not have to resort to a bite there are even occasions when a cobra will bite a human when cornered or trod upon but will not inject venom