Review and images by Lanthanotus; edited by bmathison1972
While the suborder Serpentes counts approx. known 3600 species, the everyday person would probably only be able to name four or five, and the cobra would be a sure contender amongst these. This popularity stems from the potency of its venom as well as from its quite unique defense behaviour.
The king cobra (Ophiophagus hannah) is the largest venomous snake in the world and a fully grown male may reach up to near 4 metres and 10 kg. As its scientific name suggests, its diet consists mainly of other snakes and other reptiles up to the size of grown clouded monitors. So even without its venom, this reptile is nothing to mess with. And while quite a number of snake venoms out there are more potent, a bite of this usually not very aggressive animal can be quite serious not least for the sheer quantity of venom inflicted which can render any medical treatment obsolete.
The number of toy figures to choose from is nevertheless very manageable. The Papo king cobra stands 6.3 cm tall and is in general terms a nice figure, though not too accurate, but lets dig a little more deeply.
As we are accustomed with Papo, the detail in the sculpt is quite good and crisp. The shape of the scales is reasonable, but should be more elongate in the front of the body and the tail. The diverging scalation in the extended hood is nicely done, especially on the back. Enlarged scales on the head grant the figure an authentic look, despite being not true to the scalation of the real animal at all. In addition, the head could be closer to the shape of a real cobra’s head with the blunt snout and the greatly enlarged jaw muscles in the back of the head. Maybe Papo traded the accuracy of the snout for the integration of the flicking tongue, which is a nice feature that allows to show the unique defense behaviour pose without too aggressive of a look.
Another thing to point out would be the fact, that the hood is of same size on both sides of the body while the right side should be slightly smaller. This inaccuracy however can be excused as this – surprisingly – was just discovered a few years ago by a native ranger on Komodo Island and is as of yet not scientifically described, to my knowledge.
The paint job is done with mainly with slight bronze brown and tan. Dark brown blotches decorate the belly side of the hood, the popular marking on the back is done in black and the tongue is of a dirty mauve. With the high variability of the species in mind, the paint job is authentic and well done.
Last but certainly not least a lot of readers may already have wondered about the paint job of the hood. While it is “straight to your face” so to speak I have to admit that this totally passed my attention and it is thanks to our forum master bmathison1972 that I could take the chance to redo this bit. With the variation of the species in mind the front view may be plausible, however, while it is well done, the marking on the back of the hood is the trademark of a totally different genera, the spectacled or Indian cobra, Naja naja. If this is a deliberate decision by Papo or just a simple mistake may remain a mystery [editor’s note: interestingly, Mojo Fun made the same mistake with their king cobra].
All in all this is a nice toy figure and I am happy to have it in my collection, despite its inaccuracies.
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That’s a real shame about the inaccurate pattern on the back of the hood. I wonder if the artist even bothered to study images of the real king cobra, or if they were instructed to paint it that way for the purpose of looking “cooler.”
they probably didn’t due their due-diligence in researching the animal. As I added above, the Mojo figure, which I personally believe is better overall, suffers from the same problem.
If you do a Google search for king cobra images, you’ll find a lot of Indian and other species coming up; I wonder if the species is historically misidentified, and that has carried over into the toy realm.
I wonder though, how does it rank in terms of accuracy for a spectacled cobra?