There Are Cobras in Kentucky But You Have Nothing to Worry About

Many years ago--some might say a lifetime ago--I had a friend who had a pet python. I remember the day she asked if I wanted to watch her feed it, and I did.

Anyone who's owned a snake knows she didn't feed it Purina Snake Chow. Nope, it was a handy little box of mice--the container looked like one of those Chinese food take-out containers. And I couldn't help but think, "This bad boy ain't gonna fill up on a box of white mice." But in all seriousness, she never had any trouble with it.

The Kentucky Reptile Zoo

I'm not the kind of person who would ever have a snake in my home or near me; I hate them, as beneficial as SOME of them are. So I'm to be admired, if I do say so myself, for tackling the arrival of cobras in Kentucky. And maybe ARRIVAL isn't the best choice of words; we've had cobras in Kentucky, but now there are babies, and they are housed at the Kentucky Reptile Zoo.

The Kentucky Reptile Zoo's Cobra Collection and Its Newest 'Attraction'

In fact, the Kentucky Reptile Zoo is home to a number of cobras from a number of locations around the world where they can be found--South America, Africa, and Asia. They are native all of those continents. But if you want to see them here (perhaps a BIG "if" for some of you), you need to head to this wonderful zoo.

Right now, they're ecstatic over the hatching of two Philippine cobras that are rare in U.S. zoos. These cobras also happen to possess the third most toxic venom on the planet.

And while it is called the Kentucky REPTILE Zoo--they do have more than 75 species of reptiles including turtles, lizards, and alligators--the majority of its collection is poisonous snakes because of their research with the venom. Several years ago, they performed a venom extraction on this king cobra for cancer research.

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The Kentucky Reptile Zoo's Use of Snake Venom in Research

The importance of the Philippine cobra's venom lies in its use in assisting with opioid addiction. There was a fascinating study done by the National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine about how venom helped wean an Indian man off of the opioids to which he'd been addicted for 25 years.

So if you go, you may or may not see these rare Philippine cobras, but you will get the kind of education you may never have gotten before.