Bhubaneswar: A venomous Common Cobra, which was trapped inside an empty milk bottle, was safely rescued on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar on Tuesday.
Dillip Khatei, a resident of Jamukoli on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, spotted the cobra in his backyard. On closer inspection, he found that the snake was unable to move as its head was stuck inside the glass bottle and called the Snake Helpline to rescue the snake.
Bideshi Mohapatra, a volunteer from the Snake Helpline, went to the spot to rescue the snake. He first tried to pull the 3.5 ft snake out of the bottle gently but it was further getting into the bottle. After a few futile attempts, Bideshi informed Subhendu Mallik, general secretary of the Snake Helpline.
On being told by Subhendu, Bideshi brought the trapped cobra to the Snake Helpline office carefully. Subhendu feared that by breaking the glass to free the cobra, there was a potential danger of injuring the snake with the sharp glass edges.
On carefully examining the glass bottle, Subhendu found that a regurgitated rodent was inside it. Then he lubricate the snake’s body with coconut oil and gently pulled it out. The oil helped the snake’s body slip out easily and smoothly without causing any harm. Then a mole rat was extracted from the glass bottle.
“The cobra inserted its head into the bottle finding its prey inside. It killed the mole rat by injecting venom. After swallowing the rodent, its body got swollen. The swollen neck prevented the snake to retract its head and the narrow rim of the bottle prevented the snake to swallow the prey. It got stuck in a peculiar situation where it could not swallow the prey beyond its neck region nor leave it,” Subhendu said.
