‘Kaalinga’ will be the scientific name for ‘Kalinga Sarpa’

Karnataka’s own king cobra found in the Western Ghats and known as ‘Kalinga Sarpa’ in the vernacular parlance will get its name ‘Kaalinga’ etched in the scientific world.

Karnataka’s own king cobra found in the Western Ghats and known as ‘Kalinga Sarpa’ in the vernacular parlance will get its name ‘Kaalinga’ etched in the scientific world.

A species that has inspired film and popular references in literature, the Western Ghat’s species will be officially named Ophiophagus Kaalinga.

Till recently, the king cobra whose habitat spreads across the South and South-east Asia was believed to belong to one species till a nearly decade-long research led by noted herpetologist, P. Gowri Shankar, brought to the fore four species of king cobra of which Kaalinga is one. It was in 1836 that a broad spectrum of king cobra species was named as Ophiophagus hannah by Danish naturalist, Theodore Edward Cantor.

After an extensive sampling across countries and DNA mapping among others, the king cobra species have been separated to be having four lineages — Western Ghats lineage, Indo-Chinese lineage, Indo-Malaysian lineage, and the lineage of Luzon Island in the Philippine Archipelago.

On November 22, the Western Ghats lineage ‘Kaalinga’ and Luzon Island lineage ‘Salvatana’ will be formally named in Bengaluru for these snakes that has often brought emotions ranging from reverence to fear.

“We found that the king cobra species in the Western Ghats was different from the others and hence the name. The rest of the king cobras found in India display characters of Ophiophagus hannah,” said Dr. Gowri Shankar, whose article naming king cobra as ‘Kaalinga’ appeared in the European Journal of Taxonomy in September this year.

“Since the time Cantor described king cobra, no one had taken up genetic work and for nearly 186 years it had remained as a single species. Genetic work on king cobra was taken up, more than 200 samples were used, and specimens from across the region were collected for the work,” Dr. Gowri Shankar said, speaking of his long research.