Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Cobra Attack - Suraj Strikes Twice

Episode Date: December 17, 2021

A cobra attack takes place in the South Indian state of Kerala just a couple of months ago. There's a lot of intrigue and an unusual amount of evil going on in this episode compared to most of our others, so hang on to your seats.  ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds                          Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If the world were like a sleep number mattress, everything would adapt for your comfort. Because as your life changes and your body changes, sleep number mattresses adapt and shift to give you personalized comfort night after night. And now everything's on sale during our Memorial Day event. Save up to $1,200 on mattresses for a limited time. To experience a whole new world of comfort, visit a sleep number store or go to sleepnumber.com. Sleep number to a good life sleep. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Tooth and Claw. Today we're talking about Cobra's.

Now, this story, this one's a little different from everything that we've covered on the show up until now. And you'll see why once we get into it, but there's a lot of intrigue, a lot of dastardly evil. I don't want to make light of it, especially since this one did happen very recently, just within the past couple of months. But, yeah, Wes prepared a really good story for you and has a lot of really cool information to share about the Cobra. So without any more talking? Well, actually a little more talking. I wanted to thank everyone who has taken the time to go leave us a nice rating and a review over on Apple Podcasts. At this point, it really is kind of the number one thing besides just telling your friends and family about us.

That's the number one thing that's helping us grow at this point. So if you haven't done that, we don't judge. We'll just kindly invite you to go over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a rating and a review. Hopefully a good one, but you know what, we're not going to tell you what to do or how to live. All right, let's get to the show. Let's go. Welcome everyone to the Tooth and Claw podcast. We're a podcast that talks about animal attacks.

Nice. We like to tell people the fun, you know, the stories behind these attacks because they are interesting. We also like to tell them. Were you about to say fun? I was about to say fun. They're not always fun. Today's not very fun. Normally not very fun.

But we want people to learn from these attacks so that. they can prevent them, and to learn about animal behavior and why the animals would even attack in the first place. Because usually it's something the person's doing wrong. Yeah, I've had a few people ask, why don't we do more interviews with people who have been attacked by animals? Yeah. You gave the first answer to this, but it's a really good answer.

Just part of our whole purpose is to say what people could have done to be safer and like what they did wrong. Yeah. And that's a little awkward if they're telling us this story. Yeah, it's a little hard for. for someone to tell us the story and then for me to be like, okay, here's what you did wrong. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know. It just brings a level of complication to it that we're frankly just don't want to, we don't want to bring in and we're a little too lazy. Hey, Wes. And we're shy. We don't like meeting new people. We hate meeting new people. I wanted to bring up something that me and Mike have been talking about, and we've brought it up to you, but I just can't believe I'm still talking about this. So do you think anyone in Johnny Depp's life has ever called him Johnny Dump to his face? I don't think so. You don't think anyone's ever said Johnny Dump?

I don't. To his face. Because Mike says he's been asking a lot of people ever since, like, I told him I don't think so. And everyone always answers, yes, someone's called him that. But, like, the more I think about it. I don't think. Mike's the only one that I've ever used dump as like a... Mike uses dump a hundred times more than any other person.

Yeah, so I just don't think anyone's ever called him Johnny Dump. I really don't. That's ridiculous. So usually people's responses, probably Amber Heard did. Maybe. Called him Johnny Dump as like a bird. I feel like she wouldn't call him that. Like she was so mad that that's what she came up with.

I'm just, I'm reporting the facts. I asked around and this, this is not my thought. That's a survey. Because when he asked you the first time, Wes, your immediate response was yes. And then I was like, hold on, Wes. You really think someone called him Johnny Dump? Right. And you thought about it.

And you were like, no. No. I don't think I'd ever heard someone call anyone Dump until I met you, Mike. You remember the Simpsons episode when Marge and Homer are talking about what they want to name Bart? And they go through all the potential names. And Homer's like, no, we can't name him this. They'll all the other kids will make fun of them. there's no way Johnny Depp made it all the way through elementary school.

In some bully didn't call him Johnny Doe. Maybe. I think someone's probably called him like Johnny Derp before. That makes more sense to me. Yeah. Hey, I want to... It is four letters and they both start with D. They do. And end with P.

It's kind of like a slant rhyme. I'm going to give it like a 50-50. Why don't? We'll do a poll on Instagram and ask our listeners what they think. If anyone knows Johnny Depp, just ask. Please ask him. He narrated one of your videos, Wes. He used to have a contact.

The guys that did the Dior video know him really well, so I could ask them. Yeah. Hey, I got a question for you guys too. And it's a question Jeff recently asked me, and it fits in well with our subject today. Do you guys think anyone from how Slytherin was ever good? Because in the books and the movies, it's always like, oh, you know, Slytheran like is all misunderstood and stuff, but there's good Slytherans. And there truly isn't.

What's the hat's name? The sorting hat. The sorting hat's always like, oh, lots of great wizards came from Slytherin. There's not. It's like who? Voldemort? It's like literally every single named character in the Harry Potter books by the end was a literal death eater.

All of them. Like as soon as Voldemort came back, they were like all on his side immediately. And even Snape, who was like supposed. to be a hero is pretty much a dick. He, like, was just obsessed with Harry Potter's mom, and that's the only reason he wasn't a death eater. Don't get me started on Snape. This whole revisionist history on Snape is baffling to me.

This was Jeff's point, and it's true. They just all are evil. There isn't a good one in the entire. And, like, she just never makes a convincing argument. And Dumbledore doesn't help when, like, he steals the cup from them at the end of every book. Yeah. It's like, it's just like, a million. points for Gryffindor for friendship and courage.

These guys are obviously the bad guys, so we can't let them win the house cup. So here's 10 more extra points for friendship. It's honestly the stupidest thing in those books and movies. And there's a lot of stupid things in those books and movies, and that's the stupidest one. And like, I'm a fan. I like both the books and the movies a lot. But that's a dumb, dumb thing. You know how, like, it's super popular to do the quiz, like, what house are you?

Yeah. When people say like, oh, I'm house Slythering, it's like, okay, so you're just a dick? Yeah, exactly. When they're like proud of it. It's like, oh, so you're just evil. You're just a bad person. So you just really mean to everyone? And you're a bully. Yeah. Exactly. What house are you guys? Slither. I think I, it usually tells me I'm a Gryffindor or a Hufflepuff. I think I got Ravenclaw last time. That's what I said for you. I, Jeff's definitely a Hufflinghuff without a doubt. You're the most helpful person. I'm slithering. To the bone.

This is a great segue that I manufactured into our episode. Are we talking about snakes? We're talking about snakes. We're talking about snakes. And we are talking about one of my all-time favorite snakes, probably actually my current favorite, the Indian spectacled cobra. Oh, wow. Are those the ones that you put on your Instagram? Yeah, they are.

Another good reference would be when Indiana Jones falls into the snake pit in Rathers' Lost Ark. and the cobra pops up in front of him, that's a spectacled cobra, I think. Okay. Maybe it's a monocled cobra. I kind of thought that was going to be your pop culture choice. It's not. Let me actually make sure. I need to look at a photo of it really quick, just to make sure it's not a monocled cobra.

This would be the fastest correction corner ever. Correction corner, it's a monocled cobra. Spectacle, it has the one spot on its back, back of its hood, and spectacled cobras have two spots. Anyway, this story was actually submitted to us. by my good friend Mickey, who's a taxidermist that works in Chicago. She also makes a lot of really cool crafts and stuff. But Mickey recently became a super fan of the podcast and has been sending me lots of stories that she thinks would be good entries.

And I really appreciate it. And honestly, if any other listeners feel like sending us stuff that they think we should cover, go ahead. What I would recommend, though, is usually the stories that make it to main episodes need some sort of narrative. So if it's just like a little tiny short article you found, that's more something that might make one of our news episodes, but probably not a main episode. Hop into like a bear cage at a zoo or something. Yeah, go create content for us.

We'll let you know when we're running out of good ones and we'll slip you a little something on the side, like a free t-shirt. All right. So this story actually just recently happened. It happened in India and it involves a murder. Jeff? Sorry, this is out of place a little bit, but I've had a few people get confused on our Instagram because they think only patrons can buy merchandise from us because that's like the only link we can put on our bio and Instagram. But we do have our own separate website where anyone can buy merch. Just going off Mike saying free shirt.

We'll fix that. That's the wrong time to buy. No, it's all right. We'll fix that problem here probably today. I'll fix it. So now that, you know, can I get back to the story, Jeff? Do you got any other tangents that you want to launch into right now that are completely unrelated? No, I don't.

Oh, well, maybe get started and then I'll see. Okay, yeah, I'm sure you will. Okay, so this is quite the story. A lot of our episodes, I like all of our stories. It's always really interesting to me. This one, when I first read it, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I've been really excited to tell this one. This may be our last full-length episode of this year that has a whole story and everything.

So I really wanted to save this one for a good time. And I think this is a perfect time to tell it. Are you guys ready? Can we get into it? Yeah. I'm ready. On pins and needles. All right.

So in 2018, Saraj Kumar and Uthra, all the articles I had didn't have a last name for her and I don't think she even has a last name. Her name's just Uthra. They met through a marriage broker. So essentially that's a matchmaking service in India that uses professional matchmakers to arrange marriages. You may be aware that arranged marriages are a thing in India, and this is just kind of the 2020 iteration of that,

or 2018 in this case. So there's like an app that you can just get on and get paired to get married with a stranger. Yeah, you hire a broker and you essentially like submit resumes to them, and then they comb through all these different resumes, and they give you applicants, and you can like, it's very like businesslike, but it's a way that people find,

partners. It's really hard for me not to get off on a side tangent on that because that's super interesting, but let's just keep it moving. All right, we're going to keep it moving. So they met through this matchmaking service. Suraj, the man, he came from a humble background. His father was a rickshaw driver. His mom was a stay-at-home mom. So they really didn't have much money at all. And in 2018, he met Uthra as he worked for, he was like a collections agent for a local bank in the southern Indian state of Kerala. But Saraj had this deep-seeded desperation for more money and more wealth, and he was willing to do anything to get it. Uthra, on the other hand, came from a much wealthier family in that area, and she did actually suffer from a learning disability that made

finding her a partner a bit more complicated. So her family really wanted Uthra to be with someone that appreciated her sweet disposition and could give her the kind of care that her disability required. How severe of a learning disability, do you know? I was about to say as I come through these articles, I couldn't get any really good information on that, but I know that she needed a lot of care. I don't think it was that severe, but I think it was one that impeded her daily life. I don't want to say that for sure, but I think it was one that affected her,

but it wasn't necessarily something you would immediately notice. Okay. So when the matchmaking service found Suraj, they were in person. with his hardworking attitude and the apparent care that he was willing to give for Uthra. And so they matched these two, and Uthra's father offered Saraja Dauri. So dowry is essentially something that the father of the woman gives the husband to make the whole thing more attractive, which again is like a pretty antiquated thing. But that's just how it's done over there.

So she offered him a dowry of roughly, or he, the father of Uthra offered Suraja dowry of roughly $40,000 in gold. This is in U.S. dollars, $6,000 in cash, a new Suzuki car, and $130 a month to take care of Uthra. So a pretty impressive dowry from what I could gather, especially considering his humble background. So he jumped on it, and they were married soon after. Oh, so she ended up being a real human woman. What do you mean? It wasn't like a cobra cat fishing him over this app or something? Yeah, you keep guessing what it is, but that's not what it was.

All right. We'll get there. So they got married, but unfortunately, Suraj was not the caring man that they had hoped for. In actuality, he was about as evil and as cowardly as people come. He's house Slytherin. Yeah, he was definitely house Slytherin. The first few months of married life seemed pretty uneventful. Her family described it as just being somewhat normal.

Within a year, they had a son, but it wasn't long before Souraj's parents actually wanted more. So his parents demanded that Uthra's parents pay for some of their household appliance. pay for a car for them, furniture, renovation work, and admission fees for an MBA course for his sister. So like his parents now are making a bunch of demands as well. And Uthra's parents, from everything I read, they seem like they're really good people, and they actually decided to meet the demands. And Uthra asked them to meet the demands, and her brother Vishu said that she was someone who never saw bad in anyone, and her learning disability meant that she didn't have the means to see that she was being used.

So he was definitely taking advantage of the fact that his wife just wanted to, like, make him happy and had this learning disability and was unable to see that he was using her for her wealth. Well, you can already kind of tell it's like whatever they end up giving him isn't going to be enough. Like he's always going to want everything. He's always going to want more. Exactly. So even after having all of his demands met, Suraj soon grew tired of taking care of his wife. And he started allegedly spending time with other women. So in my mind, like a decent person in that situation is simply going to realize that they're in over their head. They maybe aren't able to take care of this person who has these learning disabilities and get divorced.

Like just, you know, get out of that relationship. Is that culturally a lot more look down upon there? So I don't know if culturally it's like that big of a deal for them to get divorced. But what would happen is if he got divorced, he would have no claim over this wealth anymore. he'd have to return his dowry. He didn't want that. And he would pretty much go back to his level of living before, his income class. And he didn't want to do that.

So he knew that he wanted out of this relationship. He didn't want to take care of Uther anymore. But he didn't want a divorce her. So he started to scheme. He knew that he didn't want to be separated from all his wealth. I don't like where this is going. Yep. He decided he'd murder his wife.

But if he was even accused of murder, there was a good chance that he would lose all this stuff still. So he needed to make it look like an accident. I don't think her parents would keep paying. It's weird. I looked into it though and it's like they pretty much had to have some sort of, they needed to prove that he was a murderer for them to get all that stuff back. If he didn't divorce her and if she died, they like needed it.

The gold and car. Yeah, just like the suspicion that he murdered someone wouldn't be enough. So he needed to make it look like an accident. Relax and let Ralph's delivery handle your grocery. shopping this week. We start with only the freshest items, then review your list and carefully choose each one. Then we pack it all up and deliver it in as little as 30 minutes so you can feel confident it's what you ordered. Fresh groceries, your way with Ralph's delivery and pickup. Get free delivery during online deal days plus $30 off your first online order. Ralph's,

fresh for everyone. So, Suraj was obsessed with snakes. She said, spending hours watching videos of snake handlers and rescuers in India. So a quick little background on that. As Indian cities are growing and their communities are spreading, they're building into really great snake habitat. And as we've talked about in some of their other snake episodes, the city atmosphere isn't necessarily bad for snakes. You're making lots of good habitat for rodents, for small reptiles. And those are the things that snakes eat. And then you also have lots of little hidey holes and pipes and all sorts of things for snakes to hide in. So cities actually are pretty attractive to snakes. And in India, they're having a really big influx of venomous snakes coming into towns and

cities. So I have a friend Shoyab who works in India as a snake rescuer. He's in Bangalore. And he goes out every single day. He gets called out to people's homes when they have cobras or Russell's Viper or whatever other snakes in their house. And he'll catch them, safely remove them, and then release them into an actual natural habitat area. This is like a big industry in India. This happens every single day. Didn't you say when you're in India, he came over and just like threw two cobras on the ground and were like, Wes, look at these.

So we had met through Instagram and I told him I really wanted to see a cobra. And he brought one over and showed it to me and let me capture it pretty much. And it was one of the coolest days of my life. And we actually did it a couple times. And it was all done. like the snake wasn't overly stressed or anything, but it was a really neat experience. I'll definitely share a photo of that, but a couple of the more memorable nights in my life were dealing with these snakes.

Anyway, I had a really cool experience with one of these snake rescuers. They're really cool people. They do some amazing work, but Saraj was obsessed with watching these videos of snake rescues. So on February 26, 2020, he contacted a local snake rescuer. he asked if he could purchase a Russell's viper that the rescuer had recently caught. He bought the snake for about $130, and his knowledge of snakes made him confident that he had just bought one of the most dangerous snakes in India. So I know we said we're going to talk about spectacled cobras,

but we are going to talk quickly about Russell's vipers, too. Uh, yeah. So get into it. India has a big four, which are the four snakes that are responsible for the most deaths in India, are Russell's viper, Indian cobra, saw-scaled viper, and common crate. Those are the big four. That's the Mount Rushmore of venomous snakes in India.

Yeah. And Russell's vipers and Indian cobras are the two that are responsible for by far the most. Russell's vipers kind of look like a rattlesnake. They're like a smaller, puffed-up kind of looking viper. They can actually get fairly big, but they have this kind of diamond pattern down their back. They're usually pretty brownish-red colored. They are very well-canized. They mix in very well with like the arid environments where they typically live. They really do their best to avoid conflict, but they can strike quickly when they are threatened. That's something I wanted to touch upon really quick with snakes is I think a lot of people out there have this image of snakes hunting people and they don't. Aside from maybe anacondas and reticulated pythons, we aren't prey for snakes.

Like they can't eat us, especially a snake as small as like a Russell's Viper or a cobra. They're not looking to eat us. So the only time they ever bite people is when they're feeling threatened. They don't want to bite us. It's wasting venom, which we've talked about in other episodes. Venom production is very energetically costly for snakes. It takes a lot to produce that venom. They don't want to waste it.

So they're wasting venom. And when they bite something a lot bigger than them, there's still a really good chance that animal's going to kill them. And they inherently know that. They know that they're going to be aggravating something much bigger than them. So it's absolutely the last thing they want to do. So they do all sorts of things to let us know first. Like cobras will pull their hood out.

Rattlesnakes will rattle snakes will rattle. Russell's vipers will hiss and puff up their bodies. They do everything they can to stop from biting us. They don't want to bite us. I just want to make that very clear for everyone out there. It's stupid for them to want to buy us. So a lot of times, like, what someone who doesn't know perceives as, like, aggressive behavior from a snake is actually them worn.

you like just give me some space bro. It's a threat display and it's defensive behavior, not aggressive behavior. Exactly. So an interesting thing about Russell's vipers though is that a lot of venomous snakes will deliver what we call dry bites where they bite and they don't really inject any venom again because venom production is very costly for them. Russell's vipers rarely do that. They almost always inject venom and their venom is very toxic. They're responsible probably for more deaths in India than any other snake. And their venom has some really crazy effects and can have long-lasting, devastating effects

on the people that don't die. So I wrote down some of the stuff that can happen when you're bitten by a Russell's Viper, and it's pretty nuts. A lot of the stuff you'll see... Buckle up, Jeff. A lot of the stuff you'll see is pretty common for viper bites, so that's stuff like intense pain

that can last for weeks, bleeding, swelling, blistering, bleeding from your gums and urine, facial swelling, vomiting, diarrhea, Mike, neurotoxicity, so you can have some neural problems, and then people that die from Russell Viper bites typically die from kidney failure. Now, the weird thing, about 25% of survivors show symptoms of hypopituritism. I probably said that wrong. Another word for it is Sheehan's syndrome, and it's essentially reverse puberty.

So they lose their sex drive, they lose their fertility, they lose their body hair, especially their pubic hair. Men will lose their facial hair and muscles. Women lose their curves and the condition causes them to lose weight. And some doctors even report loss of mental faculties as their condition progresses. So essentially, they go through a reverse. Like a Benjamin button bite? And that's a permanent thing? It's a permanent thing.

Whoa. So that can happen in like 20 to 30 percent of the condition. high again? I don't know, probably. But it's like, I'm sure there's like a spectrum within that condition. Like some of these people are probably just losing some of their pubic hair and then some of these people are going through all those things. That was a possibility.

That it's reversible. I know, it's crazy. Puberty just seems like such a permanent stage of life, you know? I know. And you're going to get there one day, Jeff. I promise. Boom, roasted. So it's pretty crazy.

Russell's Vipers' bites are pretty gnarly. and they are a snake that's very feared and very respected in India. And so this is a snake that Saraj has bought, and it's a snake that he's going to try and use to kill his wife. So if your intent is to be just an evil person, did he make a pretty good choice of snake? He made a great choice, yeah. Okay.

When I talk to my friend Shoyab, who does the snake rescues, he takes an extra level of caution whenever it's a Russell's Viper, because they strike a lot faster, and they're just a scarier snake to work with. So on February 27, 2020, he carefully places this snake on the stairs in his house and then yells for Uthra to retrieve his phone from the first floor of their home. So his whole plan is for her to come running down the stairs, step on this snake, and get bitten.

But Uthra spots the serpent and screams for help. This forces Saraj to kind of play the hero and he catches the viper. But rather than release the snake, he pretends to throw it outside. he keeps it in a plastic bag, and a few nights later he decides to try again. So on March 2nd, 2020, he gives his wife Uthera a bowl of sweet Indian rice pudding, but only after mixing some sedatives into the dessert. Uthra falls asleep, and Saraj places the Russell Viper onto his sleeping wife. But as we talked about already, snakes aren't just naturally going to bite things.

They don't want to bite things because those big things can kill them. So it doesn't bite her. and it refuses to bite him, and he finally antagonizes it to this really high level and forces it to bite her. So then when it finally bites her, he throws the snake outside to get rid of the evidence. And she wakes up screaming and excruciating pain. As we mentioned, like Russell Viper bites are really painful. And the crazy thing about them is that that pain can last for weeks with their bites. With like rattlesnakes and stuff, you're usually out of the woods after a few days.

With these guys, the pain will last and last and last and last. Anyway, he throws the snake outside to get rid of the evidence. Uthra wakes up screaming and excruciating pain, and then after like a long delay, he finally agrees to take her to the hospital. So at the hospital, he claims that she had been bitten outside while she was washing clothes the night before, and Uthra doesn't remember having washed clothes the previous night, and she's saying that's not true,

but then her disability made it possible for him to convince both her, and the doctors that the snake bite was a terrible mistake. So her doctors are hopeful that she's going to survive the bite. Like any other snake bite, if you get treatment quick enough, your survival rate's really high. It's very unlikely you're going to die if you get anti-venom. They're hopeful that she's going to survive, and the very next day, while she's still in the hospital suffering in agony,

he starts researching spectacled cobras. So he's on the step two already. Yep, he's ready to move on. I also researched back cold cobras. Yeah. And as I mentioned... Guy's an idiot. I think.

Well, I mean, if you are going to try and make it look like an accident in India, this is a convincing way to do it. But I feel like... I guess they don't suspect him, right? I feel like he's already... Kind of shot his shot, though, you know. Right. It's interesting to me that, like, he has no remorse yet either. He almost just killed his wife and, like, she's recovering.

You would think the human side of him would have kicked in a little bit right now, whereas like the next day he's already looking at that same option again. We haven't done many stories yet where the people are bad people. Yeah. Like I feel like almost all of our people and our stories have been good people. This dude's bad. When I read about him, I was just like, this is an evil, evil person. He'd be Voldemort's right-hand man.

Oh, yeah, he's a death eater for sure. So I know a bit about spectacled cobras. They are very common in India. They're also found in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and Nepal. They're typically found in dense or open forests, plains, agricultural lands, so like rice patties, wheat crops, rocky terrain, wetlands. They can be found in heavily populated urban areas, such as cities, villages, city outskirts, and they're often found in the vicinity of water. They can grow to be up to seven feet, long, but average length is between three and five feet. They have very large impressive hoods, so all the cobras will have different sized hoods. Spectacled Cobras have really big ones. Like, they go way out. They're really impressive. Oh, I like that. Yeah, they typically will only raise their hood when they're doing some sort of threat display. They have two connected circle markings on the back of their hood, which gives them their name, Spectacled Cobra. They can be gray, tan, reddish brown, or even black. The first one I saw in India was out in the wild, and it was really black

looking. It was really cool. There's a great fear of cobras in India, but they're also culturally a very important and very respected animal. It has its own place in Hindu mythology as a powerful deity. So the Hindu god Shiva is often depicted with a cobra called Vasuki. I might be saying that wrong. I'm sorry. Coiled around his neck, symbolizes his mastery over the world illusion. So cobra's a very popular in Hindu mythology and theology. When you're in India, you see Cobra ornaments and statues and stuff everywhere. Okay. They mostly eat small mammals and reptiles and amphibians.

That's a big part of why cities can be attractive spots for them. As I mentioned, they're part of the big four in India, Common Crate, Saw-Skilled Viper, Spectacled Cobra, Russell's Viper. We're going to talk a bit about their venom now. They mostly have neurotoxic venom. It's also cardiotoxic, which means it affects their heart. Their venom acts on the synaptic gaps of the nerves. that'll paralyze muscles, and in severe bites, it'll lead to respiratory failure and cardiac arrest.

So a couple other things that happen. Severe local pain, so as soon as they're bitten, you're going to have really bad pain around the bite, and swelling's going to start almost immediately. That pain will persist, and the swelling and tenderness will extend up the bitten limb. So this is obviously information that I got direct from a medical paper. I'm just going to kind of read it verbatim. darking of the necrotic area of the skin and blistering are apparent by about the third day. So after three days you're going to have necrosis, which means your skin's starting to die,

you're getting blisters, and then you're going to have a characteristic putrid smell, typical of necrotic cobra bites in African Asia. Early systemic symptoms include headache, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, and a feeling of lassitude, drowsiness, or intoxication. So that's a really unique thing about these cobra bites, is that one of the first things people feel is super drowsy. So it says many subjects describe their drowsiness as if they'd imbibed large quantities of some potent intoxicant,

so as if they're really drunk. Neurotoxic symptoms begin with pitosis, which is the patient puckers their brow, contracting the frontalis muscle, attempting to raise the eyelids, or tilts the head back so as to see beneath the drooping upper lids. They start salivating, they can't clear their salivation

or their secretions, their jaw starts sagging, and they can't open their mouth, and that progresses to respiratory paralysis. So that's like your lungs seizing up, and that's how you die, is from respiration failure. So not as fun as the Sydney Funnel Webb spider bite. Well, it's funny you should say that. There's actually a history in India of people becoming addicted to cobra venom, and they would pay snake charmers. I was going to ask. You were going to ask if people were addicted to cobra venom?

It makes you drowsy and stuff. Yeah, it just sounds like almost like an opiate in some senses. Don't want to get too far down that road. Yeah, that's really, really cool. Cool is, again, the wrong word, but. I know what to get Mike for Christmas. Some cobra venom bites and causes diarrhea. What's not to like?

Well, that was the Russell's Viper. I didn't see that anywhere for cobras. But they are getting these bites from juvenile cobras, and it would lead to sedation, feelings of euphoria, and loss of consciousness. But apparently this isn't really a practice anymore that's kind of been done away with. But there is a history of that being done, which is pretty intense, like paying a snake charmer for a bite. He's researching this and he kind of knows that that's what happens if you get bit by a spectacle called cobra.

I don't think so. I think his level of research is just like these guys kill people all the time. Because I was going to say like it sounded like the people survive at least three days with a spectacle. Yeah. I think there's a lot of misinformation. India and people just see them as being much more dangerous than they actually are. And like with treatment, it's like a 20 to 30% mortality rate without treatment. So even without treatment, a lot of people survive.

With treatment, it's hardly anyone dies. Like you want to get it as soon as you can treatment, but it's not like you have to get it within an hour. Yeah, you want it within an hour. Oh, okay. Yeah, stuff really starts to set in after that. That respiratory failure for cases of severe in venomation, so when people get a lot of venom, that can happen in like three to four hours. So you really want that, that anti-venom quick. And I mentioned untreated cases, mortality rates generally around 20 to 30 percent. And in comparison,

our biggest and baddest snakes, so like Western Diamondbacks and Eastern Diamondbacks, that's typically around 10 percent. So these guys are much more deadly than any snake we have in the U.S. aside for maybe coral snakes, but coral snakes hardly ever bite people. Okay. So roughly 45,000 people die each year for. from snake bites in India, making it the country that has by far the most snake bite deaths annually. Between 2000 and 2019, it's estimated that 1.2 million people died from snake bites in India. It's a lot of people. Wow.

That's incredible. In just the last 20 years. You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get lost. Or you could book a stay with Hilton.

Welcome to your oceanfront room. Just steps from the water. The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay.

A quick note. I think spectacled cobras are top three most beautiful animals I've ever seen up close. I just think they're unreal beautiful and cool. You think they're in your top three most beautiful? I think so. I don't know. Really?

When you get like those. That eliminates a lot. What, Mike? When you see those pictures that really get up close to like a snake's head, especially cobras I was looking at it, preparing for this episode, they're super pretty when you get really close to them. They are in a weird way. Just like the way they're like pebbled scales are and like the design on their back

and just the way they move and their hood and everything, I just, I really fell in love with spectacled cobras. I really did. Why don't you marry? Talk to your therapist. All right. I should go get addicted to snake venom. I'm addicted to snakes, but not snake venom.

So back to our story. Snakes, the gateway drug. Uthra spent 52 days in the Pushpagari. Sorry, I'm murdering that one. Pushpagery. Anyway, she spent 52 days in a hospital in Kerala, which is the state they lived in, recovering from the viper bite.

When she was finally released to her parents' care, on April 22nd, 2020, she's unable to walk. So just like, let's think about that really quick. She's in the hospital for 52 days from this Russell's Viper bite. She's had to have skin grafts. She's had to have all sorts of crazy surgeries. And she's unable to walk now. And it's really done a number on her.

This Russell's Viper bite was really bad and she just barely survived. But she was released into their care. And on May 6th, just like a couple weeks later, after she's gone back from the hospital. She's still recovering in bed. Her legs are bandaged from skin grafts, and Suraj decides he's going to strike again. So he contact...

At her parents' house? Yeah. He contacts the same snake rescuer once again, and offers this time to purchase an Indian cobra, or a spectacold cobra, for a little more than $100. The snake once again was sold to him, and using a plastic container,

he smuggles it into her parents' house. His wife is still in great pain, and that night he gives her some juice that was once again laced with sedatives. When she falls asleep, he throws this large venomous snake into the room and on top of her sleeping body. The cobra he had purchased was about six feet long. That's a pretty decent size Indian cobra. No, sorry, he's about five feet long. So once again, though, he's foiled by this relative calm demeanor of the snake that he thought would viciously lash out at anyone in anything. and the snake just slithers off of her and goes into the corner.

So he tries again a second time he like catches the snake, he has a pole or the hook or whatever to catch it, and he again like tosses it onto her and again it slithers off into the corner. So he's getting pretty frustrated. And this time he catches the snake with the hook and he grabs it from behind the head and he presses its fangs into her. Like when you see them milk snakes where they push them into the cup, that's what he does into her army, like pushes it into her head.

He pushes it into her and forces it to bite her twice. And by this point, like, this snake is super aggravated, so it's going to bite whatever he pushes it into. And it bites her twice. Yeah. Real jerk, huh, Mike? Yeah, he is. He's a big jerk. So he lets the snake go.

It slithers into a shelf in the room and it stays there all night. Suraj then gets to cleaning up the evidence. He washes the juice glass that had the sedatives in it. He destroys the stick that he used to handle the snake. and then he deletes a bunch of incriminating calls and messages on his phone. He must have spent the night in the room, because when her mother comes in to see Uthra the next morning, she told the police he was there as her daughter lay on the bed,

her mouth open, and her left hand dangling on one side. She asked Suraj, why didn't you check whether she was awake, to which he allegedly replied, I didn't want to disturb her sleep. So she's dead. This time it did work. Suraj succeeded in killing his wife. He's an awful person.

So the autopsy report found two pairs of puncture wounds close together on her left forearm, and chemical analysis showed Uthra had cobra venom and sedative drugs in her system. They immediately found that she had sedatives. Now, I do think he probably could have explained that away by the fact that she was recovering from her other snake bite, and they could have been giving her sedatives to help her sleep or whatever, but they are there, and it is evident. Yeah. Okay. So on May 8th, the day after Uthra's death, Suresh, that's his last name, the snake handler who sold Suraj, the cobra, read about her death in the local newspaper, and he tried to call Suraj and Suraj didn't answer. And the next day, Suraj finally returned his call and told him he can't tell anyone that he'd sold him the snakes. So Seh, the snake handler, asked Suraj, like, why he'd done this? Like, he put the pieces together and he's like, why'd you do this? And Suraj, Raj responded that he couldn't live with his wife anymore.

And he said that if Suresh remained silent, they could pass her death off as a serpent curse. And they could both avoid being implicated in the murder. So in this part of India, a serpent curse is a superstitious belief that cobras have the power to curse families who don't worship them. So he pretty much blackmails this dude, like says, hey, if you aren't quiet, you know, we're both going to be implicated in this. The guy could get in trouble for selling venomous snakes to people. These rescuers aren't allowed to like sell snakes that they catch and so like this guy made a big mistake selling this to the snakes. I think he just thought he was interested in snakes, but you still can't sell venomous snakes to people. Like it's a big no no. It's a good rule. Like my friend Shoyab who does this, he takes it very seriously. There's no way he would ever do that. So when I was reading this, I was like this guy was really breaking a ton of rules. Okay. So Suraj starts to try and take control of the shared wealth and property they has with this. wife right after she dies. He's like asking where the gold is and where everything is that they have. And her family like that raises a few red flags. And they start. Not very subtle. No, they're thinking

that he's involved. And so they asked the cops to launch an investigation, which they do. So on May 24th, the police finally arrest Suraj. They conduct an 11-week investigation of his call records, internet history. They examined a dead cobra that was exhumed from his back garden. They found a stash of sedatives in his car, and evidence that he had bought not just the cobra, but also the Russell's viper. So this guy was a moron. Yeah, I mean, he left a lot of evidence around.

And they issued charges that ran more than 1,000 pages. So at trial, more than 90 people, including herpetologists, which are scientists that study snakes and other reptiles, and doctors testified. So there's like a ton of people that testified. And I read through a lot of these court transcripts and stuff, and they had like ironclads.

evidence. So for example, the bite marks on her arm were much wider than those from a typical cobra bite, like almost twice as wide. And that suggests that the fangs have been forced down and that the cobra had pressure on the back of its head to bite. That makes sense. The time of day raised a lot of suspicion. Cobras are almost always just active during the day. At night, they're typically very sedentary and they're just searching for a place to hide. So the fact that a cobra would be in her bed and bite her at night is almost impossible. They actually, investigators demonstrated this argument by setting up an experiment, and they had like a mannequin on a bed at night, and they kept throwing a cobra on top of it.

And every single time they did it, the snake would just slither away. And the only way they finally got it to bite was they had a piece of chicken breast tied to a limb, and they just like kept pushing in this cobra's face and like kept advancing this little piece of chicken on it. And finally, after doing that for a while, they got it to bite that piece of chicken. Jeff, did you have a question? I was just going to say the cobra is very innocent, you know? Yeah.

Like if the cobra could testify, I'm sure you'd be like, I did not want a bite her. He made me do it. Yeah, yeah, you're right. That's a good, man. That's a really good point. Vishu, her brother, is the one that actually ended up killing the cobra. Okay, so other suspicious things included the fact that there is no obvious entry point into the room.

There wasn't like a good place for a cobra to get in there. and another like really important one is that she slept through a cobra bite. They're extremely painful and just the bite itself. It's like having two hypodermic needles, you know, punched into you and they're bigger than that. So you feel it. It's something that would wake you up if you weren't heavily sedated, which she was. So they also called Vava Suresh, who was the snake catcher that Siraj had watched online in a lot of these videos. And he told the court that during his 30-year career,

he had been bitten 16 times by Russell's vipers and 340 times by cobras, resulting in excruciating and severe pain. Only three of the viper bites and 10 of the cobra bites were critical, though, he said. Which this dude's a bad snake catcher if he's been bitten this many times. Like, I didn't look at his videos. 10 billion snakes. I'm sure he has, but so has my friend Shoya and so has some of the other snake rescuers that I follow. And they're very, very, very careful not to get bit and they never are bitten. I think this guy, from the impression I get, he's like kind of turned into a bit of celebrity

and he's like posing with the snakes and stuff. And I think that's led to him getting bit a lot more. I kind of want to watch his videos. Like this is what the dude was doing in his free time. Yeah, I'm sure they're crazy. But he said that he's had to amputate his left middle finger after a cobra bite. after another bite he can no longer fully rotate his right wrist. He said that a snake that bites for self-protection would not strike twice

because they're really cautious about using their venom. And he was sure that Uthra would have been woken up had she been bitten if she wasn't sedated. So his testimony was like a pretty important testimony for this case. Also, after she was pronounced dead, as I mentioned, her brother Vishu found the cobra killed it. and he marked where he had killed it. So they exhumed it, and on a post-mortem examination, showed that its abdomen was completely empty,

which was also very significant because typically snakes take seven days to digest their food, and they feed almost daily. So for it to have a completely empty stomach means that it hadn't eaten in at least seven days, which means that it had been kept in confinement. So they knew that this snake had been kept. Probably, I think, like, one of the most damning pieces of everything, evidence was the snake catcher that he had threatened decided to testify. And he told them that he had

sold them both of those snakes. There we go. Yeah, exactly. He like, cock it up. He was pardoned. And so he was able to do that testimony without worrying about himself. Yeah, which honestly, it was definitely the lesser crime. Like he shouldn't be doing that. They should definitely get rid of his license for catching snakes. But as far as criminal charges, the fact that he was willing to testify against, this true murderer and like terrible person makes me think that they probably made the right decision parting. Yeah. Hopefully he cleared his conscience a bit too by coming clean and...

Totally. Otherwise, it would be so hard to live with that for the rest of your life. Yeah. That he killed a developmentally disabled person with the snakes that you gave him. That's pretty rough. They also called some experts that testified the Russell's Vipers bite was also unnatural. They said it was all but impossible for the ground-dwelling snake to navigate the smooth, tiles to the first floor of their home where she was bitten and also the bite marks were

vertical suggesting she had been bitten while she was lying down they also told the court that Russell Vipers like arid landscapes dry landscapes and their house was built on marshy land and they said that locals had told the snake experts they hadn't seen a Russell's viper in the area for 15 years so all of this evidence really added up Suraj still pleaded not guilty the meme the new meme of Roman where he's like scrunched in his chair after sending his dad an accidental picture. Dick, pick. Yeah, I'm picturing that.

What's the guy's name? Suraj. Suraj. That's how I picture him in his chair at court right now. But he still pleaded not guilty? That's incredible. He pleaded not guilty, but he was found guilty on four offenses, including attempted murder and murder, and he was given two life sentences.

Good. Her family, Uthera's family, said Suraj was stoic. and showed no signs of remorse at the sentencing. Their focus is now to raise Uther's two-year-old son and teach him what a happy and caring person his mother was. This is a tragic one. This is why I don't think gun laws matter. Like, if you get rid of guns,

people are just going to use venomous snakes to kill people anyways, you know? Yeah, and we've learned it works really well. Just kidding. None of us actually believe that. Yeah, none of us are, it's not a real political stance. I'm just making a joke. You know what I thought of is in Jeff's execution episode that we did for Patreon, where people used animals to execute people, they need to bring back the snake pit execution for this guy. They need to throw Saraj in a pit of venomous snakes because that's how this guy is justice.

Yeah, he deserves to go that way. Like he needs to know how it feels to get bitten by venomous snakes. Because everyone that I've talked to that's been bitten says that it's like the worst pain that you can imagine. It's just like your skin is on fire. And that's what he deserves. Like maybe I'm being harsh, but he's a bad dude, and he deserves to be thrown into a pit snakes. Anyway.

All right. Yeah. There we have. Okay, yes. Noted. Right. I think we should bring that back to like, I could see Texas bringing that back or something. Yeah.

Pit of snakes execution. You think maybe he had thought he had some, like, legal protection. Like, remember that movie Double Jeopardy? Yeah. Yeah. Where I'm really curious Because he already tried once with one snake But nothing bad happened

He's gonna try it again They can't get them There wasn't any of the same thing twice You can't be charged for the same crime twice Genius To be fair He wasn't ever charged for the Russell's phone I mean these snake

These were like back to back He was awful He didn't even let her recover From the first bite Before trying a second snake But he is an idiot Like how would you not think Like she's literally in her recovery bed from one snake bite, and then he's like, let's try another one.

And it like immediately came back to him. It was so fast to figure out like, okay, he did it. Yeah. Well, I'm glad they got him. I am too. I hope, you know, he rots in prison, and I hope they decide to throw them in a pit of snakes. All right. So we're going to skip our ouchies because this person just died, and it's definitely not respectful.

And for like the Jeff and Mike. What would we do? Let's just say like we would get divorced. Yeah. Okay. Fine. Fair enough. Yeah. All right.

So we're going to go into our categories. We're going to start with our pop culture cobras. Wait, do you guys have any questions about the story or cobras before we do that? Yeah. So how different is like cobra venom? What do you mean? From like each species of cobra. Like how different is it between the different species?

Like are some more venomous than others? Some of them have more toxic venom. How high does the spectacle rank, like in that more venomous or kind of average or less? I would say probably pretty average. Okay. Let's do the quiz real quick because I'm curious how many types of cobra there are and I want to see how many you know. Oh, we're doing that quiz. Oh, the bed.

Okay. I don't know a ton. I'm just going to say. Don't say anything. Do you want to pick the number or do you want me to, Mike? You go for it. Okay. I'm going to say he can name eight.

types of cobra in 23 seconds. Or I guess I'll say seven and a half. Seven and a half in, I'm going to say under. Okay. That's not a lot of time. Under? Okay. So, ready, go.

Okay, king cobra, spectacled cobra, monocled cobra, Egyptian cobra, spitting cobra, Cape cobra, snouted cobra, forest cobra Philippine cobra Time You got nine I got nine

Wow That's more than I would have thought actually You said stuff like forest cobra Which I'm kind of like It sounds like it exists But the snouted cobra Water cobra Land cobra

Jungle cobra Was snouted cobra the one from Big old cobra Your news story Jeff Is that what it was called? Yeah is a snouted cobra Okay I'm pretty confident about all of those then.

Yeah. I'm a fact check to those. All right, Mike, I think you owe me like $25 bucks right now. Yeah, I'm down bad. I don't think I've won a single one of these. Sorry, I kind of misled you. You said you didn't know any. They came to me as I was thinking.

I feel like this is like Larson Collusion against me. It's not Larson. It's ridiculous. All right. All right, so let's get into the other categories. We're going to do our pop culture cobras. So our favorite cobras from pop culture. Okay.

I actually picked three. this time and I'm going to let you guys go first because you might do some of mine. I picked three, two, and I'm just going to name them all right at once. I don't care if you guys picked one. So mine are three members of Cobra Kai. Okay. So, Creece, he's an honorable mention. And then Johnny Lawrence is an honorable mention.

But my favorite cover Kai member was Miguel from the new show. I really liked him. And I just love the symbol of the cobra on Cobra Kai. Yeah. So, yeah, those are my three pop culture cobras. Perfect. Mike? Mine is kind of similar in that it's not an actual snake,

but I picked the cobra commander from G.I. Joe. He's sweet. I actually picked Cobras, so this works out perfectly. My favorite is actually the cobra, the Jafar. turns into an Aladdin just because of like how fast it moves and how like scary it is. That I really liked that cobra a lot. My second favorite are the cobras from the animated Ricky Tiki Tiki Tavi cartoon, which was like a book that Rudeyard Kipling wrote and it's about a mongoose that like fights these cobras. And there's some really cool kind of like

late 70s animation in that cartoon and the cobras are really like creepy and scary. And then my third is my background right now, which is a cobra in an episode of The Simpsons. It's like the opening credits and Lenny and Carl and Homer and Barney are all in the bar and they're playing like stupid little pranks on Mo. And they're all pretty dumb. And then all of a sudden he opens the cash register and a cobra shoots out and bites him like four times. And he's like, oh, you got me. The old cobra in the cash register. And then he starts getting like woozy and stuff. And I always loved that scene. So those are my three favorite pop culture cobras. Nice. You know

that scene in Aladdin when Jafar turns into a big snake? That whole sequence is pretty scary. It is. But the part that made me feel the worst that I didn't like the most in that scene is when Jasmine smooches Jafar right in front of Aladdin. I was like, oh man. And she's all hot. I was like four.

And she was super hot. She's my favorite. Princess. Me too. Definitely. All right. And it felt like such a betrayal, even though I knew what she was doing, it's still her, you know? Yeah. Imagine how Aladdin felt. I'm sure he hated it, Mike. How long do we have to talk about this?

We're on your side. This really did a number of you, huh? So you think her kissing him was worse than him turning into a huge snake and trying to kill Aladdin? Right, because at least I knew Jafar's intentions. I've just had trust issues ever since. You know, it's like, what? Yeah. Was there actually something behind that kiss or what?

Yeah. You know, because she, I mean, there's no hesitation. She went. I mean, he's pretty cool. He just turns into this huge snake. Yeah, I can see why he's got a girl with like that guy and not me. You know that meme that's like you and then like the guy she tells you not to worry about? Yeah.

And that guy is like a huge snake. I get it. Yeah. The guy looking over his shoulder at the girl. Yeah. And that'll be Jasmine. Exactly. And she's looking at Jafar.

Someone make this meme for us. You know what we're talking about. All right. Okay. Did you guys do the quiz, like the one right answer, one wrong answer? Are we not doing that? Okay. So we launched this category a while ago, but essentially the boys prepared a question for me.

One of them has a fake fact and one of them has a real fact. And I have to pick out which is fake and which is real. Yep. Okay. I'm ready. You choose who says this first. Mike, you go first. Okay.

Fact. Or is it? A housefly hums in the key. key of F. Okay. Jeff. Fact. Or is it?

A Maco, or sorry, wait. Maco. A Maco shark can swim four miles an hour backwards. I'm going to say Mikes is fact. Jeff's is fiction. Nice, yes. You did it. How did you know?

I don't think Miko sharks can swim backwards that fast. I don't think they can swim backwards at all. Yeah, I just made it up. I had no idea. Okay. It made me think. That was a good one. I tried to say Maco first because it would seem like I was reading a fact off of my computer.

Oh, that's smart. Wow. Yeah, you're a regular surrage. Smarter, though, Jeff. You're smarter than that guy. Okay, so I thought as kind of a throwback, we're going to do the Anaconda scale for this episode. It's fitting since. Yeah, we're going to, and we're all going to have the same.

answer and that's why I wanted to do it. So the Anaconda skill is one we used to do in our early episodes. And essentially, we took the characters from the hit movie Anaconda and we would say which of our story characters they most represented. So like are they are they Ice Cube where they're the hero of the story and they did pretty much everything right? Or are they John Voight where they you know, were dastardly and tried to use a snake to kill someone? Or are they like Owen Wilson, who was just really stupid and ended up getting killed by an animal because they did something dumb? So it's a question we don't do very often because it kind of went off the rails pretty early. But this one, it made sense.

I'm going to give him a John Voight. Yeah, me too. Just really evil, bad decisions from start to finish. Yeah, and he used a snake to kill people. So John Voight, we all agree. He's a John Voight. Okay. All right.

So we're skipping what would Mike and Jeff do because you guys would just get divorced. Oh, okay. If I got bit by a snake, what would I do? Yeah, let's say that. Let's say you get bit by a cobra. What are you guys going to do? Clear my browser history, probably. Yeah, go to the hospital.

Yeah, it is the right answer. So we've talked a bit about what you actually should do if you're bitten by a snake. But really, there are a few things you shouldn't. do that I want to say first. So first of all, don't try and pick up the snake or, like, capture it so you can show them what kind of snake it was. If you have the opportunity to snap a quick photo of it, that could help. But don't try and catch it or kill it. Don't apply a tourniquet. Don't try and, like, cut the wound open to suck out the venom or, like, cut it for any other reason. Don't try and apply ice. Don't try and give them alcohol as a painkiller. And then some people think that you can, like,

use electric shock or caffeine to help with it too. Those things don't work. Don't do any of those things. What if it bites your hand and you, how long would you have to chop your arm off before the poison gets to like your heart? I don't know. That could work, but I wouldn't do it because there's a very good chance they'll be able to save your arm at the hospital. Yeah. So like the best information I ever heard about snake bites is that the number one,

The number one thing you want to help you out with a snake bite is your car keys. That's what you need. Your phone and your car keys. You want to call the hospital. To stab it with them. And you want to go to the hospital. Nope, not to stab it with your car keys. Killing snakes doesn't work your arm with your keys.

Yeah, exactly. So what you should remember is if you do, like, try and remember what the snake looks like. If you have the option to get a photo, get a photo. Keep the person who's been bitten, still and calm. You don't want their blood pumping faster than it needs to be. And then just get to the hospital as soon as possible. So if you can't get them to the hospital right away, you're going to want them to lay down and put the bite below the level of their heart.

You're going to want to keep them calm. You're going to wash that wound as much as possible, and you're going to cover it with a dry, clean dressing. That's really all you can do. There's not much else that helps. Getting them to the hospital and getting anti-venom is the thing that's going to save their life. Take off like rings and watch. In case they sweat off stuff.

Yep, exactly. That's good advice. Good job remembering that. Okay. Boy Scout. Yeah, good job. Eagle Scout. Okay, so that's what you're supposed to do if you're bitten by a cobra.

So let's put cobras into our cage match. What do you guys think? So what? How big are they? Yeah, we got to get the weight class. Common is three to five feet long. Okay. Yeah.

Let's take a big, like, let's take like a six footer, though. Okay, we'll say a six footer. I think again, like we had this. problem with the rattlesnakes, they have the potential to kill a lot of our animals, but then they're also going to be killed by those animals. That's the thing. Like, even if they kill an animal, they're going to lose before they kill it, you know? Right.

You got to be careful, though, because even if you think you killed the snake, sometimes it's not dead. Remember when the guy cut the head off of the snake and 10 minutes later it still got them? Yeah. Yeah. They're like, they're like Obi-1-Kinobi, like, come back stronger than you could ever possibly have imagined. Or Darth-Mov. Even Canovi didn't come back, did he? Oh, he swore him, though.

Yeah, he, like, him dead was a lot more powerful than him alive. I don't know about that. Just because he is, like, a ghost that said, like, one sentence of advice after he'd, like, already... No, he showed up and helped him fight, too. Didn't he? No, I don't know. I don't remember. You think Ovi one was just posturing?

I don't know what you guys are talking about. I'm getting mixed up with, like, Harry Potter and all these other movies. Yeah, you think it had Dumbled to it. Anyway, what were you talking about? Oh, yeah, cage match. Yeah. I think there's very few of our animals that it kills without being killed. I think it can kill our rattlesnake.

I think it can kill our Funnelweb spider. Our chimpanzee, nah, chimpanzee's going to kill it. What are the main animals in the wild that go after cobras? Mongoose, right? Yeah, mongoose will kill them. Honey bad news are sweet. Yeah, there's like a number of birds that will kill them too. that are immune to snake venom.

Like see them as prey? Yeah, that like we'll try and kill them. Is this, I have always heard this, but king cobras are called that because they kill cobras, right? Yeah, king cobras will eat other snakes and other cobras. So there's other snakes that'll kill them, there's birds that'll kill them, there's mammals that'll kill them. Like, there's a fair number of animals that will kill them.

Can they kill a mongoose? Is that like a good fight? They can't. Well, mongoose are mostly immune to their venom, but it is possible for snakes to kill a mongoose still. I think as far as our cage match goes, the only animals they're like probably not even capable of killing, they probably couldn't kill a hippo. They probably couldn't kill an orca.

So some of our like really big animals, I think even if they get bit. Our heavy weights are going to survive. Even if they get bit a couple times, they're probably not going to die. But I think there's very few of our animals that they can kill without being killed themselves. And that's really just like the rattlesnake, the spider. Monitor lizard? Maybe. I think their skin is so thick that they'd have a hard time getting them. But maybe. Anyway, should we get to some listener questions and Patreon questions?

Yeah. I say we do. Okay. Patreon questions. So this is from Gracie. Considering how often Jeff mispronounces words on the pod, are there any words or phrases that you guys can't stand hearing mispronounced? example wolf wolf milk milk pillow pillow that's real or any on the contrary any words that you like saying wrong on purpose Jeff has to answer first I don't get mad at anyone forever mispronouncing words I just don't think I can like that'd be very hypocritical of me to get mad at someone think like oh am I saying that wrong Yeah, I'm like, oh, I was talking with a friend and she was saying, she asked me how I say pecan for pecan pie.

Yeah, pecan. And she's like, do you say pecan or poo can? I was like, what? Poo can? No. Yeah. Weird. She was serious about it?

Uh-huh. My hardest word to say is, well, I have a couple, but the one that I get most nervous is aluminum. I think I did it. Pretty good there. Yeah. I would say, Gracie, thanks for the question, first of all. And I would say that like the ones you listed are some of the worst ones for me. I hate when people say woof for wolf.

I hate that one. I hate milk for milk. And I mostly hate that one because I used to say milk and I had to train myself not to. And so now it really bothers me when I hear milk. Do you remember why we started saying milk and pillow correctly? Why? Because one day I was just like being normal, like normal everyday life. And Mike just explodes at me, like so mad.

And he's like, why the hell do you always say milk? Milk is such a good word and you always say milk. And like, I didn't even realize I was saying it wrong my entire life. So I was just so like taking a back. But then I realized he was right. And then I told you about it and you were like, oh, I say milk and I say pillow. And then you started saying it the right way to. I feel like it was a longer.

Okay. I thought it was a long time ago that I stopped saying milk. But maybe I'm misremembering. I've done some good in the world. The only one that Jeff ever mispronounces that bugs me is when you say ultimate instead of ultimate. That's ultimate. For whatever reason that one just gets me. Ultimate.

When he's like, hey, I'll take the ultimate cheeseburger. And I'm like, it's ultimate. Ultimate. Not ultimate. He did it earlier in this episode. He said Andaconda. Andaconda. You know what really bugged me in our Patreon episode we did not too long ago?

Both of you said orangutang? And that's just not it. There's no G there. I know. That's a common one though. I could go for hours on this one. I'll keep it short. So don't never, no one should ever say warsh instead of wash or crick instead of creak.

These are all like old-timey prospecty ones, like prospector. But I try not to get impatient with people that mispronounce words unless I know that they know better. Yeah. Because a lot of times it's people that are reading and just have never heard the words set out loud. So, you know, give them a little time to learn and to grow. It can be regional stuff. You like you're talking to me. Anyway, thanks for the question.

Someone wrote in it. Someone commented and said that they also say ornament instead of ornament. I saw that. Yeah. It's interesting. Ordomint. Ornament. Yeah. Ultimate.

All right. Ultimint. The ultimate ornament. All right. So from Flan and Hendrick. Hey, fellas. Question for y'all. What's your favorite animal, animal moment, animal attack from the Simpsons?

So it can be one of those three options. Got it. I'll go first. My favorite is when it's the Homer bad man episode. and it's when Homer's been accused of sexually harassing that girl where he pulls the gummy Venus to Milo off her butt and they're like showing all the different talk shows that are talking about how he's bad

and one of the talk shows is just called Ben and it's Gentle Ben the Grizzly Bear who's the host and he like goes up and he has a microphone on his head and a woman answers a question and then he like runs into the table full of food and they have to dart him and he like hits someone out of his way and it's just pandemonium. And that's my favorite animal moment from the Simpsons plus animal attack from the Simpsons.

Mine's probably also a bear, but it's the bear that's just like in their front yard. Yeah. And like Homer tries to like shimmy across like an electric wire to get to his car and he just falls right next to it. And it just still just sits there and doesn't care at all. And then like someone comes and like tranquilizes it. They just, like, make it act like such an intense situation, and the bear's just, like, sitting there, minding its own business the whole time. Yeah, and then they have the bear patrol afterward that has, like, the stealth bomber and everything. Yeah.

Mike, you have a favorite? Yeah, the one I always think about is the episode where Homer is trying to get into shape, and he's hitting the boxing bag. And a little fly comes and lands on the boxing bag, and he, like, punches it. And the fly just, like, flies away again. I don't know why. I've just always thought that was the funniest thing. I like that one too. That's the boxing episode.

That's the one where he's like becoming a boxer. Yeah. Because that's right when Mo is like, hey, maybe you shouldn't be punching and you're just going to like tire him out. Yeah. Cool. Good question. Good poll on that, Mike. That's a, that's not where my mind would ever win.

Yeah. All right. So from Carissa, she has a separate question for everyone. Wes, yours is, what's the. difference between a black and brown widow spider and how deadly are they really? I don't know the difference between a black and brown widow. So this one's from Mike, and she wants to know why you hate horses so much. Yeah, I realize I didn't go over an exhaustive list of why I hate them so much back in our

horse episode, but I just think they're really gross and dumb animals is the bottom line. I don't like the way they look. They're weird, like, gross sinewy legs and muscles and their stupid faces. The fact when you feed them, they just, like, slobber all over your hand. I just like nothing about them is appealing to me. Riding them sucks, you get all saddle sore and you're all bouncy. Just ride a bike. I just hate everything about horses.

Whenever I can give you the green light to talk about horses, I'm going to take that opportunity. And then, Jeff, how do you feel about a Pizuki? I think Pizuikis are so delicious. One of my favorite desserts ever, and I would classify it for sure as one dessert. Oh, that's a good question. Hold on, wait. Really? Again, the intention of the chef was to make that as one dessert.

It's a Pizuki. It's one dessert. It's cookies and ice cream. You can intend to make cake and ice cream as one dessert. Fair enough. But in the way that I asked you that question, that's not how it was. Like, I think the chef is the one that decides. And if it's like, today I'm serving up cake ala mode or whatever, fine.

But if it's like you have a thing of ice cream and a thing of cake and like you get to pick one of those two, you can't combine them for one dessert in my question that I asked you. You can't like go to the grocery store. Okay. Well, let's refresh this really quick. My question for Jeff initially was if you could pick one dessert for the rest of your life, what would it be? and he said cake and ice cream and I was like, no, that's two desserts. But how did I say cake a la mode? You were in like, okay.

No, probably not. But had you said Pizucia, it would have been. Yeah, dude, you got to, you got to. It's a flawed question. I get it. But I still, I'm sticking to my guns. No, I don't accept my answer. I never will.

All right, so let's do some listener questions. We're taking our time on the questions. Yeah, we are. This one can be quick, I think. What is everyone's favorite Pokemon? Uh, Pikachu. I never got that into Pokemon, so I'm just going to say Pikachu. Pikachu's your favorite.

Sure. I'm going Barbosaur. Mine is War Tortle. Nice. We're all Gen 1 Pokemon. Look at us. We're all old boomers. We're definitely not boomers.

Um, from Mishy Pop. I think I've said hers before, and I probably said it completely different this time, but maybe one of the two I got it right. How long do you guys think you could last in the show? alone. I think I can make it pretty long and alone. Mostly because I feel like, you know the show, Mike? Yeah, I would, I'd make it five minutes and be ready. Just be like, come get on the radio and be like, come get me. I feel like I do pretty good, like not eating very much. And then I feel like most of the people that leave that show,

leave because they get so lonely. And I don't, I think I'm pretty good with that. I think I could go pretty long. My problem with shows like that is that I know I won't be the winner. So like, that's the thing. You know someone there is just like see that's the mental game. Like sometimes the people that win aren't the people you'd expect. It's always like a person who like

if anyone ever kills like a deer like they win. Right. If someone gets big game they're going to win. So from Carly W. In which states in the U.S. does it stay warm enough for bears not to go into hibernation?

So for sure like some of those southeastern states like Florida, Southern Georgia, those places they can go without hibernating. I'm not sure about, like, the bears around L.A. and the foothills in Southern California, I imagine they still hibernate. And it is important to just note that the pregnant females are going to hibernate no matter what. So even in Florida and whatnot, if a bear is pregnant and she knows she's going to have cubs,

she's going to dig a den and go into a den. So. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So they always do, they will always den up. But in Florida, like, how long if it's one? warm uh they'll go in in like november and come out in like march just like our bears the reason the other bears hibernate ones that aren't pregnant is because there's no food available to them in the winter

but if they're in a place it's warm and there's plenty of vegetation and food they just won't hibernate so yeah sorry that's not the best answer tosh baranov uh what's the weirdest christmas gift you've ever received west you got me like a ten dollar foot massager from foot spot from Walmart. It's just like you didn't have a present for me yet and bought like the first interesting thing you saw at Walmart. That was just the worst present you've ever gotten. I tried one time and was it was weird too.

I think the weirdest present I've ever given you was this. I gave him a big fake scorpion and like punched a bunch of holes in a box when he was really little and acted like it had this live animal in it and told him it was alive. I thought I was getting a pet. And then when he opened it, he got really scared. because there was a scorpion in there. I thought it was really funny. And like, it was just a jerk.

Like my Christmas present from you was just a prank. A prank, yeah. But I don't know. I can't think of my weirdest, but that's the weirdest I've given for sure. Mike, you got anything? Just religious literature. Like a Jehovah's Witness pamphlet. I always think that's a little weird.

Someone gave you that for Christmas? Yeah. Weird. Yeah. Yeah, that is weird. Yeah. Just like, not that I'm like, oh, stupid, religion, whatever. And it's just like a weird gift to give someone.

Like a pamphlet as a gift. Maybe give me a Bible or something. I don't know. Whatever. Yeah. All right. Well, that's it for listening to questions. Thanks, everyone for sending them in.

Thanks especially to our patrons because we want to answer all of your questions. And that's just part of what you get for being a patron and helping us out. So thanks again. All right. So should we move on? Probably. Yeah. Sorry.

You're running the show, dude. All right. So we're going to do, how are we messing things up for them? So this is kind of a tricky one. Because they're kind of doing good in cities. Yeah. So spectacle of cobras are doing really well. They're not even, as far as IUCN listing goes, they're not evaluated because they just

kind of know there's plenty of them. But they are an animal that is being misused by people and brutalized in some cases. Does them thinking they're kind of like a spiritual, religious animal make it so that they kill them less often? It does, but it also, it's created the whole snake charmer subculture in India and hobby. And so like snake charming is something that I think we grew up with thinking was like really unique and interesting, but it's actually really, really bad for the snakes. And I worked with an Indian nonprofit called Wildlife SOS and they do a lot of rescues of snakes that snake charmers are using. And snake charming is actually illegal in India now, but it still happens and especially happens during a

certain month and a certain celebration. And I'm going to read what Wildlife SOS says about their snake rescues and kind of what happens to these snakes when they're being used by snake charmers. So what they say is the month Shravan, sorry, Shravan, I'm probably saying that wrong, is sacrosanct for Hindu devotees across different parts of North India as they flock to temples to pray for prosperity. However, right outside the temple, men who claim to be sages have their tangerine colored bags filled with snakes. Snakes are associated with the Hindu god Lord Shiva and devotees who are otherwise petrified of snakes never hesitate to bow down to them during this time and offer them milk. Many people are oblivious to the fact that the desperation out of which a snake drinks the milk

offered to them is because they're dehydrated and are not allowed any movement. Snake charmers sew their mouths shut, leaving just a small gap for them to drink any liquid, which is why devotees offer milk with honey and saffron. The traumatized snake, lapse it all up. Unlike mammals, snakes do not have the natural ability to break down the milk enzyme, which reacts gravely to their body, resulting in poisoning and a painful death. The most common ailments of rescued snakes from wildlife SOS are severe dehydration, starvation, broken and infected fangs in the case of venomous snakes like cobras, and even serious bacterial infection. The crude method of defanging a snake or removing their venom glands with the help of a knife

puts the life of the snake at grave risk and ensures that they're never able to survive in the wild again. So these snake charmers aren't good to these snakes. They sew their mouths shut. They break their fangs off. Yeah, I had no idea. Yeah, they get their venom glands out with a knife. They're in really, really bad shape when they're rescued. It's a terrible practice.

I know it has some cultural significance and it's hard, you know, with those cultural things to kind of walk that line. But there's ways to worship snakes or to worship Shiva without. brutalizing an animal. So it needs to end. It's a practice that needs to end. So don't ever give money or milk or any of those things to snake charmers because it's bad for the snakes. And it's not just bad. It's torture. Okay. I'm good to know. I have one last question I just thought of. Yeah. You probably have said this before, but with cobras, so when they inject venom into someone, how does that happen? Like, where does the, the venom doesn't go through the two, that goes around the outside of the tooth?

No, it goes through the tooth. The tooth is like a hypodermic needle. And then it like comes out of the tooth and squirts into their body? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Haven't we talked about this? I thought so.

Yeah. They have like, they have ducks in their teeth and it's like a hyped drink needle. It comes out of their venom glands and it's injected into the body. Okay. How much do we like this animal? So let's give it our claw ratings. I'm going to start because mine's going to be pretty awesome. obvious. This is a 10-claw animal for me. I got to handle one. I think they're one of the most beautiful

animals. They're my favorite snake, probably. If I were to get a tattoo, a cobra would be one of the first tattoos I would get. So they're a 10-claw animal. I absolutely love them. Is spectacled cobra, your favorite type of cobra? Yes. Yep. I'll give them a nine. I think they're awesome. I think they're really beautiful. Snakes in general, I think are really, really interesting and fun and cool to handle and just be around. And I'd like one, I'd like one for my own. I'd like to own one. Well, I don't think you should, but I'm glad you would like to. I'm going to give it a nine and a half. It's harder than I thought. It's my favorite type of cobra for sure is a spectacled cobra. And I think they're like the prettiest cobra. And I think cobras are really cool. I'm going to put it at 41.

Okay, that's pretty good. Nice. Cool. We all like cobras. Missed out on that illustrious Jeff's top 40. Just barely, though. Just barely. All right. Well, thanks guys for listening to the story. Thanks Mickey again for sending in that story. It's a really good one.

It was really interesting to research. And thanks to all you listeners. Thanks to everyone out there for listening. Special thanks to our patron members. We are going to, at some point, this holiday season or directly after, we're taking a little break from doing main episodes, just like a week or two break. But we are going to be. posting Patreon episodes throughout.

So if you're going to need your fix, sign up for Patreon, you get access to all of our catalog of bonus episodes if you sign up at the Grizzly or Tiger Tier. And if you sign up at the Tiger Tier, you're also going to get some cool merch sent out to you. So go ahead and sign up for that and everyone have a happy holiday. All right. Especially you two. Yeah. Have fun in San Diego.

All right. I will. And I'll see you soon in Utah. I can't wait. Get the band back together. Post Christmas, we're going to be feeling good. We're going to show our gifts to each other. We're going to, you know.

We'll see who got the Christmas almond. Oh, man, I can't wait to tell you all. All right, we'll see you guys. See you guys. See you. Happy Christmas. Happy holidays. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time.

You reach the end of the episode, and you know what that means. It means we're about to shout out all of our new patrons by name. You guys are all incredibly generous, and it bears repeating. It's literally the only reason we're able to keep doing what we do here. So yeah, thank you. It seems like it just doesn't do it justice at this point, does it? So thank you so much to Jesse, Bethany, Alex, Nigel, Emma, Callie, Keegan, Waylon, Travis, Leanne, Anna, Jody, Jake, Sonia, Camille, Thomas, Amanda, Tracy, Rosie, Jade, Erica, Sophia, Lee, Jeff, Emily, Bill Paxton, loved your work in Twister, Chenade, I think that's probably how that's pronounced. I just know, you know who I'm talking about. Shanade, Chenade. We also have Adam, Fiona, Josh, Becca, Cassie, Kevin, Jay Faraday, Dana, Seabair, Carissa, Sophie, Bowen, Casey, Holly, Paul, Jack, Nubia, Caitlin, Miranda, Morgan, Lauren, Cronopio, Georgia, Layla, Jonna, M., Kate,

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