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NARRATOR: He is the king of serpents,

unblinking,

hypnotic,

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deadly.

And hungry for his own kind.

Towering over a wild yet vulnerable kingdom,

the king cobra, the largest venomous snake in the world,

is powerful enough to kill a full-grown elephant.

And we know almost nothing about it.

But that´s about to change.

Two king cobras,

each surgically implanted

with tracking devices,

are leading researchers deep into the jungle

and into a mysterious world of snake-on-snake violence,

cannibalism,

and surprising tenderness.

Follow these pioneering serpents

into their quickly disappearing realms,

revealing secret lives no human has ever seen before.

♫♫

♫♫

♫♫

♫♫

In the sun-dappled forests of India,

a rat snake tastes the air for the scent of his prey.

♫♫

So intent is the rat snake on his victim,

he fails to notice

the king.

This is his domain.

And the king cobra´s favorite meal is rat snake.

So a second hunt begins.

♫♫

The rat snake sees his mistake, but it´s too late.

The hooded hunter looms and the rat snake cowers.

The king seems to contemplate his meal.

A mistake.

There´s an intruder in the kingdom.

The rat snake uses the distraction to make his escape.

♫♫

The king´s dinner will have to wait.

The king cobra grows up to almost 5 1/2 meters...

...and has ruled the forests of India

for millions of years.

But this ancient creature lives in an increasingly human world.

And its kingdom grows smaller every year.

King cobras reside throughout Indonesia,

Malaysia, and much of Southeast Asia.

But a mountain range along India´s southwest coast,

known as the Western Ghats,

has perhaps the highest density of king cobras in the world.

The Ghats are one of the wettest places on Earth.

Vast quantities of India´s water

run through its labyrinth of rivers and waterways.

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Endless water providing for limitless life...

...and countless species.

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All this life ensures a chain of never-ending death.

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But it´s the king cobra that rules these forests.

♫♫

It can live up to 30 years of age

and never stops growing.

To accommodate this endless growth,

the king must shed its skin four to six times a year.

The first sign -- its eyes become cloudy

from a milky secretion

released to help separate old skin from new.

When its eyes clear,

it begins shedding.

It can take up to 10 days to scrape

the used flakes of itchy, irritable skin free.

It´s an anxious time in the life of a snake.

And a bad time to seek out the company of humans.

But houses offer warmth, shelter,

and a choice of hiding places.

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It seeks only solitude,

but packs enough venom to kill a human many times over

and might defend itself if disturbed...

...with fatal consequences.

♫♫

Fortunately, the villagers around here revere the king

and know who to call when one takes up residence.

Okay. (speaks native language)

NARRATOR: Gowri Shankar, the conservation officer

at the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station,

has dedicated his life to saving

and studying the king cobra.

Gowri, and the founder of the research station,

renowned herpetologist Rom Whitaker,

are about to embark on the most ambitious study

ever conducted with the king.

They want to capture and radio-tag king cobras

for the first time and follow them into the wild.

But they need a king for the experiment.

And this distress call may provide

the perfect opportunity.

WHITAKER: There are problems with king cobras sometimes.

And no matter how patient

and how kindly they feel toward king cobras,

having one in your bedroom is no fun.

NARRATOR: Capturing king cobras

is a potentially deadly business.

Even the best get bitten.

Gowri has been bitten once.

Rom´s been struck twice.

And he´s now allergic to the antivenom.

If it´s anywhere, it´s going to be under the baskets.

I think I can see her already.

Yeah, she´s glistening under there.

Easy does it. Easy does it.

Oh, man.

Yup, and she´s shedding her skin, too.

NARRATOR: He handles the nearly three-meter king

with an ease that comes only from decades of experience.

She´s really nice, Gowri.

It looks like a female.

NARRATOR: They know by the size of the head

and the coloring of the skin

that this king is actually a queen.

WHITAKER: And let´s get these shots.

NARRATOR: Before they bag her, they take a photograph

to record the pattern on her hood.

It´s kind of like fingerprinting an animal, isn´t it?

-Yeah. -One more.

NARRATOR: But to do this,

they must make her open her hood.

In other words, make her mad --

not something for the faint of heart.

With these mug shots,

they hope to assess how many snakes live in the area

and keep tabs on snakes they´ve met before.

A successful photo ID,

and they offer her a dark escape --

a capture bag, fitted with a piece of PVC pipe.

WHITAKER: Through the pipe.

NARRATOR: And the rescue is complete.

Normally, they´d release her away from the village.

But they´ve got much bigger plans for today´s prize.

They´ll take her back to the research station

to prep her for a groundbreaking role

in cobra research.

Until now, studying kings in their natural habitat

has been virtually impossible.

The forests are too dense and the snakes too elusive.

As a result, little is known

about the king´s life in the wild --

where it goes,

what it does,

or the size of its range.

Rom and Gowri´s plan is to surgically implant

small radiotransmitters

into two king cobras and follow them into the wild.

Because these little-understood animals are now endangered,

this research project is more important than ever.

India´s forests are rapidly disappearing

as humans push deeper into the wilderness.

It is estimated that snakes kill

as many as 50,000 people in India every year.

♫♫

While the king cobra is

the largest venomous snake in India,

there have been only four reported deaths

in south India in the past 20 years.

And though it has more venom than any other snake,

only 10% of the people they bite die

because kings can control how much venom they release.

Muscles around the venom glands contract,

squeezing calculated amounts of neurotoxins

through its hypodermic fangs and into the victim.

Or it can release none at all,

which is often the case with humans.

After all, venom is valuable.

And the king is a prolific killer

of other snakes.

The king cobra´s diet consists almost entirely of serpents.

Though it´s an apex predator among reptiles,

the king increasingly finds itself

in competition with people.

As India´s burgeoning human population

continues to grow, farms and plantations

carve deeper into the forests of the Western Ghats

and wandering kings often find themselves

in unfamiliar territory.

Now Gowri and Rom have been called out

to a betel nut plantation

where a local snake handler has trouble by the tail.

It´s a king who has taken refuge in a hole

at the base of a tree,

and the base of the tree is at the top of a cliff.

The danger factor is just too much, man.

Never mind the venomous snake,

but how about a 40-foot drop to your death along with it.

NARRATOR: They´ll need a serious plan to save this snake

and keep themselves out of danger.

But if they catch this snake,

they´ll have their second pioneer serpent

and the research project can begin in earnest.

Safety first, dudes.

NARRATOR: To keep from falling

12 meters to the plantation below,

Gowri ropes himself in.

Once we spot the head, that will help us a lot.

We don´t know where exactly the head is.

He might be 9 or 10 feet.

NARRATOR: The plantation workers´ plan

is to pull the tree down,

tearing it and the snake from the ground.

But that quickly proves too difficult...

...and Gowri takes over.

♫♫

Carefully digging around the hole,

he loosens the snake´s grip on the earth...

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♫♫

until, finally, the king comes free.

♫♫

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Now the local snake handler,

perched precariously on the top of the cliff,

finds himself face-to-face with an angry king.

♫♫

But with a firm grip on the tail,

Gowri drags the 3 1/2-meter serpent from the cliff.

This snake is broader and lighter in color

than the female they rescued earlier.

It must be a male.

♫♫

As the audience gathers,

Rom and Gowri try to lure the serpent into the bag.

And after some coaxing, the king obliges.

♫♫

Toughest catch I´ve ever seen in my life, actually.

Insane, actually.

NARRATOR: Now, the tagging can begin.

With both a male and female king cobra,

they´ll be able to compare the behavior of the sexes,

something that´s a complete mystery right now.

It´s time to call in the expert.

Matt Goode is a herpetologist from the University of Arizona

and a leading authority on tracking snakes.

GOODE: Well, it´s difficult,

because the animals that we study are very secretive.

You really have to be creative.

There´s just as much art in it as there is science.

And you sort of got to think like a snake, I guess.

NARRATOR: Matt has implanted radiotransmitters

in hundreds of venomous snakes,

but never a king.

GOODE: Radio telemetry has really just revolutionized

the study of snakes.

Before, you know, you could release a snake

and probably never see it again.

Now we can track it

and we can find out what it´s doing

on a minute-by-minute basis if we want.

The real motivation is what it´s like to be a snake.

WHITAKER: Doc, go ahead and load up some anesthesia.

NARRATOR: At the station, the team preps the female

for the unique operation,

taking every precaution to ensure her safety.

GOODE: Let´s get some tape.

NARRATOR: They must estimate how much anesthetic to use.

Too much and she might not wake from her drug-induced sleep.

♫♫

Needle drivers.

WHITAKER: I think she just went down.

NARRATOR: Matt makes an incision...

and carefully inserts the radiotransmitter

between the vital organs.

This small tracking device will emit a signal

that a specialized receiver

can pick up from over 300 meters away.

Then Matt inserts two small buttons.

These will take temperature readings

every hour for the next two years.

Some final stitching and the operation is complete.

The king was shedding when captured,

so they remove the final flakes of dead skin,

including the eye cap -- the dead skin covering the eye.

You can see fairly clearly through that.

NARRATOR: All that is left is to wake her up.

But she does not respond.

So Matt inserts a straw into her trachea

and gives the king mouth-to-mouth,

trying to flush the anesthetic from her lungs.

But she still won´t wake up.

♫♫

Because kings are an endangered species,

the forest department keeps careful watch.

♫♫

Finally, the king takes a breath for herself.

(applause)

WHITAKER: Thanks, doc. That was fantastic.

Thanks, everybody.

NARRATOR: The surgery is a success.

Tomorrow, it´s the male´s turn.

That´s so cool, man.

NARRATOR: Soon, both snakes

will be released into the wild.

GOODE: This looks like a great spot to me,

right in the stream bed.

NARRATOR: This female king was rescued from a human world.

So for the study, the team releases her 30 kilometers away

from her old home,

far from humans.

-Ah, there she is. -Yeah.

By following the king into her world,

they´ll learn how far she ranges,

when she´s active,

and how she behaves in the wild.

Matt is also eager to see if the king has a homing instinct.

GOODE: It´s one of the main goals of this study,

is to understand if there´s a difference

between translocated snakes

and the ones which are already in their home range

and are used to where they live.

NARRATOR: If a relocated snake simply returns

to its old territory on human turf,

then relocation itself is not the solution.

GOODE: If we have to come catch them and translocate them,

then we have a problem on our hands.

NARRATOR: And if she continues to clash with people,

she could be killed.

Anxious for a quick escape, the snake moves south,

away from its home range.

Only time will tell where she´s headed.

The journey begins, you know?

The adventure begins. We´ll see what the snake does.

It´s gonna be really cool.

♫♫

♫♫

NARRATOR: Matt and his students set out on the snake´s trail,

tracking as many as eight kilometers a day.

I think we should head that way.

♫♫

♫♫

For the volunteers,

it´s the experience of a lifetime...

complete with myriad encounters found nowhere else on Earth.

But they must keep all their focus on the king.

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♫♫

♫♫

♫♫

All right.

NARRATOR: A few days later, they release

the male king cobra,

also armed with a tracking device.

♫♫

♫♫

That´s it? Cool, man.

♫♫

NARRATOR: Food is his priority after his ordeal.

♫♫

♫♫

He tastes the air,

drawing in microscopic scent molecules with his tongue.

The tongue then transfers the molecules to a small organ,

the Jacobsen´s organ, in the roof of the mouth.

Here the molecules are identified

and the information is passed to the brain.

One scent in particular rivets his interest --

a rat snake.

His keen vision pinpoints the victim.

It too is a formidable hunter,

growing almost 2 1/2 meters in length.

But it´s also the king´s favorite food.

♫♫

♫♫

The rat snake tries to look intimidating.

But it´s outmatched in every way.

The king cobra towers over his victim.

♫♫

♫♫

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Hypodermic fangs deliver a massive dose

of neurotoxic venom.

♫♫

The rat snake is not venomous,

so its desperate counterattack

does little to deter this predator.

♫♫

The king then walks his fangs up the body.

Each gnawing bite injects more venom

until the struggling lessens

and an all-out attack on the nervous system begins.

Eventually, the diaphragm and lungs are paralyzed

and the victim asphyxiates.

Kings always eat their prey head first.

Backward-facing teeth help guide the victim down.

The venom has already started to digest the rat snake

from the inside out.

It absorbs the entire snake --

bones, scales, everything.

♫♫

♫♫

He´s tired and vulnerable after his big meal

and will lay low for almost a week,

hiding in the leaf litter.

The radio-tagged female is still on the move.

For the eager volunteers, it´s a trial by fire.

Bad weather, treacherous terrain,

and one of the densest populations

of deadly snakes in the world

makes tracking through these forests extremely dangerous.

And trouble can come when least expected.

Just a few days into the project,

they lose the female snake´s signal.

-Nothing, huh? -Nothing at all.

Still nothing.

You know, guys, we´ve got to get up out of this stream bed.

We got to get up on top and see if we can get that signal,

and we need to do it quick,

otherwise, we´re going to lose this snake.

NARRATOR: If they don´t pick up the signal soon,

the king could be gone forever.

If following the tagged snakes proves impossible,

the project will fail.

Desperately, the research team scrambles to high ground

trying to regain the king cobra´s signal.

The tracking device implanted in her side

broadcasts more than 300 meters.

But in some conditions, it can be far less than that.

There it is. We got it.

Yeah, it´s a long way away.

So we´re going to have to really move it.

NARRATOR: They finally locate the signal,

but they must still visually locate the animal.

There it is. We still got her.

♫♫

There she is. There she is.

NARRATOR: Matt marks the area

and takes a GPS reading of the location.

It´s still too early to tell whether the female king

is moving in search of a mate

or if she´s seeking out her old home.

♫♫

As the female king slithers, she secretes pheromones,

leaving a potent scent trail along the forest floor.

For the eager male who picks up the scent,

it´s a road map to her affections.

♫♫

♫♫

Finding her is only the beginning of his trials.

Females are often wary of the larger males,

and with good reason.

He could kill her if she does not accept him.

But she could also kill him,

so he bumps and nudges her with his nose --

an eager flirtation.

Eventually, the seduction works and our female relents.

She spreads her hood and raises her head off the ground.

Mating can take as long as an hour.

If all goes well, in about a month,

she´ll lay some 20 to 40 eggs --

the heirs to the throne.

♫♫

Huh?

-Right above your head. -Right above your head.

Oh, big male.

NARRATOR: Not more than 20 kilometers away,

the tagged male wanders back into a betel nut plantation.

He´s watching us.

Yeah, he´s watching us.

NARRATOR: The snake has climbed high into a tree.

King cobras often climb in search of food

or simply to bask in the sun.

First, they try cutting down the branches around him.

He´s going up. He´s going up.

NARRATOR: But he only pushes higher.

In the end, they cut the whole tree down.

♫♫

♫♫

♫♫

♫♫

They once again coax him into the bag.

WHITAKER: Wonderful.

NARRATOR: The tagged male´s attraction to humans

offers some troubling insights into the snake´s behavior.

SHANKAR: Yeah, there he goes. Don´t move. No one move.

NARRATOR: If he´s lost his fear of people,

his behavior could be dangerous for serpent and human alike.

With populations continuing to grow,

finding a safe way to coexist with kings is a priority.

Back in the forest, the radio-tagged female king

has spent the past two weeks with her mate...

when another male wanders into their territory.

♫♫

♫♫

♫♫

♫♫

During the breeding season, when two male snakes collide,

everything is on the line.

Often mistaken for a mating dance,

this display is actually a form of ritualized combat.

Unwritten rules govern the duel,

and there´s no biting allowed.

Rising higher than a meter,

each tries to pin the other to the ground.

♫♫

♫♫

With a final non-venomous blow, the contest is ended.

♫♫

♫♫

The resident male has lost,

and he must leave his territory and his mate.

And to the winner go the spoils.

Like all males this time of year,

this snake seems to have only one thing on his mind -- sex.

But our tagged female has already mated

and wants only to be left in peace.

♫♫

Unfortunately, she is about to play out a horrifying scene.

♫♫

♫♫

At first, the new male king cobra

seems to be merely persistent in his courtship,

and the tagged female playing hard to get.

But she´s carrying another male´s eggs.

Is it possible he senses the rival´s offspring?

For whatever reason, his intentions turn from mating...

to murder.

♫♫

♫♫

She is not fully immune to her own kind´s venom

and he squeezes her in his vise-like jaws,

pumping venom into her bloodstream.

♫♫

♫♫

♫♫

♫♫

But death does not come quickly.

♫♫

He is her physical superior, but she will not surrender.

♫♫

♫♫

♫♫

After more than a half an hour,

with every ounce of life left in her,

she begins to roll.

♫♫

♫♫

This death roll might be the final fight for freedom

or simply the final breath of life,

but it signifies the end.

♫♫

After 45 minutes...

the queen is dead.

♫♫

♫♫

While the male´s true motives for the murder are unclear,

he is a snake eater, so he begins to swallow her.

But he may not have killed her out of hunger.

Whether he´s just an aggressive male on the rampage

or if some other variable led to a breakdown

in the rules of the game, we may never know for sure.

But the pregnant queen is too large

and he cannot swallow her.

So he regurgitates her lifeless body...

and pushes on...

leaving the female king,

and the eggs inside her, for the scavengers.

♫♫

♫♫

Life in the wild is a series of harsh realities.

But for every tragedy, there is new hope.

-Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. -See that?

It´s huge.

NARRATOR: Rom and Gowri have been notified

of another female king,

this one building a nest in a nearby tract of forest.

With the tagged female gone,

they put the new female on 24-hour surveillance,

hoping to witness the rise of the next generation.

With the monsoons coming,

the mother king´s new brood will need shelter.

She´s the only snake in the world

that builds a nest for her eggs,

piling leaves onto a mound as tall as one meter high.

That is so methodical.

And that´s why you have this symmetry.

When she finished that side,

she came exactly to the opposite side.

When she finished that side,

she came to the other side of the nest,

and now she´s coming to this side.

NARRATOR: It must be perfect for the eggs to survive --

high enough to avoid flooding

but sheltered enough

to maintain the right temperature.

The eggs must incubate at 28 degrees Celsius.

It can take more than 12 hours of rigorous work.

The mother king will stay with the nest,

standing guard, unable to hunt,

until her eggs are ready to hatch.

She could go as many as three months without a meal.

Meanwhile, our tagged male snake is still on the move

and has wandered once again into a human world.

(dog barking)

He is drawn here on the trail of a potential meal...

a rat snake,

stalking a rodent right into someone´s front yard.

♫♫

Nothing will interrupt this hunt.

Twisting and turning,

he mauls the victim, pumping it full of venom.

Witnessing this hunt in human territory

confirms a suspicion Rom

and others have held for some time.

WHITAKER: We´re learning an awful lot by radio tracking

for the first time.

And we always suspected

they spend plenty of time in rice fields.

And that´s where they find their rat snakes,

because that´s where the rat snakes find rats.

But now we´ve really proved it with what we found out.

NARRATOR: Humans attract rats,

rats attract rat snakes,

and rat snakes attract king cobras.

Still, despite increased contact with the serpents,

human deaths are not on the rise.

It is the king cobras who are more at risk.

But as the dry season wanes,

the kings have more immediate concerns.

The monsoons of the Western Ghats are legendary,

dropping almost nine meters of rain annually in some places.

And everyone must adapt to the monsoons --

people,

animals,

even the king.

The deluge batters the female king´s nest.

If the water rises too high,

all her efforts will be lost,

and all of her babies could die.

♫♫

For months, torrential rains soak the Western Ghats.

But millions of years of evolution

have taught this mother well.

The center of the nest stays dry and the eggs are safe.

Finally, after 100 days,

the baby snakes are ready to hatch,

triggering the hungry mother´s departure.

She is, after all, a snake eater,

and no doubt hungry enough to eat her own young.

So instinct drives her away

in search of an unrelated victim.

Deep in the nest,

using a sharp, tiny tooth,

a new king tears the leathery egg casing...

and breathes its first breath.

♫♫

♫♫

They emerge one by one,

over the course of a few days --

25 snakes in all...

♫♫

armed with a predatory hunger, even at birth.

They will remain by the nest for 24 hours

to absorb their nutritious yolks --

sustenance for the hard days ahead.

They are less than a day old, already powerfully venomous,

but still vulnerable.

Left on their own,

most of the babies will be taken by predators

such as raptors,

mongooses,

even other snakes.

Or they will die of starvation.

Only 1 or 2 of the 25 snakes will survive to adulthood.

And even then, nothing is guaranteed.

For Rom, after 37 years of studying the king cobra,

the tagging project has shown him that he´s just beginning.

WHITAKER: I wish I could say I know a lot

about king cobras after all these years.

To be honest with you, we´ve barely scratched the surface.

NARRATOR: So far, the research project has been a success

and has provided a rare glimpse

into the secret world of the king.

WHITAKER: What we´ve learned so far is pretty amazing stuff.

We know now the kind of resting places they prefer --

in caves.

They go in caves and holes an awful lot.

They climb a lot, which we suspected before,

but now we´ve really proved that as well.

NARRATOR: They´ve also found that the male

moved much farther than the female.

Before the female was killed,

she traveled around five kilometers.

But over the first seven months,

the tagged male snake has moved more than 75 kilometers.

And he shows no signs of slowing down.

WHITAKER: We had a sighting recently

and he looks in very good shape,

which means he has been feeding, he has been drinking,

he has been living well.

We were always a little bit worried.

This is the first time a king cobra

has ever been radio tracked.

We don´t want him to feel as though he´s being chased by us.

We want him to do everything naturally.

NARRATOR: But there are troubling discoveries as well.

Researchers believe the male snake is moving

in search of new territory.

But it seems he´s learned that human habitat

is a good source of food, shelter, and warmth.

And he´s twice made his new home in our world.

Simply relocating snakes away from humans is not the answer.

But the solution remains a mystery.

One thing is certain --

as people expand deeper into the wilderness,

something is bound to give.

WHITAKER: What we´re looking at is a mosaic of forest,

paddy fields, and plantations, and that´s king cobra country.

Year by year, the agricultural land

is expanding right into the forest.

King cobras really depend on this land as well.

NARRATOR: The Western Ghats have already

seen their share of destruction.

In the past century, undisturbed forest in the Ghats

has dwindled from about 100,000

to a meager 13,000 square kilometers.

Now a biodiversity hotspot,

it is one of the most endangered ecosystems on Earth.

WHITAKER: India has lost about 80% of its rainforest.

And that´s our fear, you know, that the rest of it could go,

that we´ll lose most of the king cobra´s habitat.

NARRATOR: But the most intriguing discoveries

from the tagging program

have also been the most shocking.

Since the project began,

male kings have killed two pregnant female king cobras

within a 20-kilometer radius.

The researchers don´t yet know

whether the killers were rogue males on a rampage

or if the brutal killings of pregnant females

is common among wild kings.

The answers will only come with continued research.

And the success of this pilot project will go a long way

in advancing the study of the king.

Here it is there. Look.

NARRATOR: An autopsy of the dead female confirms

that she was indeed pregnant...

SHANKAR: ...7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16.

There´s one more.

NARRATOR: ...carrying 17 eggs

when she met her untimely end.

♫♫

She is laid to rest with a royal funeral pyre --

a fiery homage to this pioneering queen of kings

whose sacrifice has given us an unsettling new glimpse

into the king cobra´s merciless world.

SHANKAR: She was supposed to build the nest

and get the next generation ready.

But she ended up here.

♫♫

♫♫

NARRATOR: At least for now,

one new generation has survived.

But even for these deadliest of creatures,

survival is a brutal battle.

Each will carry the time-toughened mantle

of a true survivor...

a crown prince destined to reign

over one of India´s last Edens.

♫♫

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♫♫

Captioned by VITAC