Caught On Camera: Cobra Swallows, Throws Up 11 Onions In Odisha

In a remarkable incident in Odisha, a cobra was found to have swallowed 11 onions and one toad. A video shows him throwing up the onions after villagers called Snake Helpline volunteer Himanshu Sekhar Dehury to rescue the common Indian cobra. The incident took place in Chendipada village in Angul district, when the snake was found inside the house of a village resident, Susanta Behera.

Mr Dehury says that he was dumbfounded to see the snake regurgitating the onions and that he could only shoot a short video clip of the cobra regurgitating the last 2 onions.

"Before I could guess something, the cobra started to regurgitate the onions. That's when I realized it to be an unusual incident and gave my phone to my friend who shot the last 2 onions being regurgitated out of the mouth of the cobra," says Mr Dehury.

Watch the video below:

Video courtesy: Himanshu Sekhar Dehury

Subhendu Mallik, General Secretary of Snake Helpline, tells NDTV that although cobras are carnivorous by nature, at times they do swallow such items like fruits or vegetables. "This is known as 'Herbivori' - an unusual behavior in snakes which occurs due to judgmental error of snake when it finds the odour of rodents or any other of its prey on the fruit or vegetable."

He adds that this is the first case in the world where a cobra had swallowed 11 onions.

In April this year, a cobra in Kerala was filmed throwing up seven eggs that it had swallowed.