Eti Cobra wakubwa kuliko wote wako Kenya!

Mimi nabishana na hao wataalamu. Hao nyoka aina ya cobra (wanaotema mate) wakubwa wako Tanzania, huko Tabora! Wamefika kuchunguza nyoka huko? Wanasema kuwa huko Kenya wamemkuta cobra mkubwa futi tisa na mwenye sumu ya kuua watu 15. Naona hawajachunguza vya kutosha.

Huko Igalula, niliwahi kuwmona cobra mwenye futi ishirini! Huyo wa Kenya ni mdogo ana futi tisa tu! Nakumbuka treni (Central Line) ilikuwa inapita, kwa hasira yule nyoka alismama na kuanza kutemea treni mate! Abiria wa treni tuliyomwona tulipiga mayowe ya mshangao. Alivyosimama ilikuwa balaa maana alikuwa mrefu kweli kweli! Giant hasa.

Nyie wataalamu wa nyoka fikeni Tanzania, halafu ndo mtoe suggestions zenu! Tena pale Chuo Kikuu cha Dar es Salaam wamejaa kila aina. I assure you that in Tanzania we have even bigger snakes!

Ila sidhani kama waTanzania watakubali hiyo hoja ya kuokoa nyoka. Tulifundishwa, ukiona nyoka mwue au atakua wewe!

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Record-size spitting cobra found in Kenya

NAIROBI (Reuters) - A new species of giant spitting cobra, measuring nearly nine feet and possessing enough venom to kill at least 15 people, has been discovered in Kenya, a conservation group said on Friday.

WildlifeDirect said the cobras were the world's largest and had been identified as unique. The species has been named Naja Ashei after James Ashe, who founded Bio-Ken snake farm on Kenya's tropical coast where the gigantic serpents are found.

"A new species of giant spitting cobra is exciting and reinforces the obvious -- that there have to be many other unreported species but hundreds are being lost as their habitats disappear under the continued mismanagement of our planet," said the group's chairman, Kenyan environmentalist Richard Leakey.

Ashe, now deceased, was the first to catch a larger-than-normal spitting cobra in the 1960s and suggest it belonged to a different species.

Bio-Ken director Royjan Taylor said the recognition of the new species was an opportunity to raise awareness about snake conservation as well as find remedies for the powerful bite.

"Naja Ashei is responsible for a very serious snake bite," he told Reuters by telephone from the farm. "People don't care about saving snakes. They talk of saving dolphins or cats, but never snakes!"

The conservationists' excitement has drawn scientific endorsement from a British-based biologist.

Research published by Wolfgang Wuster, of the University of Wales, said a field visit confirmed the Naja Ashei is a new species. "The new species is diagnosable from all other African spitting cobras by the possession of a unique DNA," he wrote in a review in July.