Animalia > Chordata > Squamata > Elapidae > Naja > Naja nivea

Naja nivea (Cape Cobra)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

The Cape cobra (Naja nivea), also called the yellow cobra is a moderate-sized, highly venomous species of cobra inhabiting a wide variety of biomes across southern Africa including arid savanna, fynbos, bushveld, desert and semi-desert regions. The species is diurnal and is a feeding generalist, preying on a number of different species and carrion. Predators of this species include birds of prey, honey badgers and various species of mongoose. The Cape cobra is also known as the "geelslang" (yellow snake) and "bruinkapel" (brown cobra) in South Africa. Afrikaans speaking South Africans also refer to the Cape cobra as "koperkapel" ("copper cobra"), mainly because of a rich yellow colour variation. This species has no known subspecies.
View Wikipedia Record: Naja nivea

Attributes

Gestation [1]  58 days
Litter Size [1]  12
Maximum Longevity [2]  26 years
Venomous [3]  Yes

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Name IUCN Category Area acres Location Species Website Climate Land Use
Kalahari Gemsbok National Park II 2382284 Northern Cape, South Africa
Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve II 256073 Western Cape, South Africa  
Namib-Naukluft National Park II 12585619 Namibia  

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Cape Floristic Region South Africa No
Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland No
Succulent Karoo Namibia, South Africa No

Prey / Diet

Bathyergus suillus (Cape dune mole rat)[4]
Georychus capensis (Cape mole-rat)[5]
Otomys irroratus (vlei rat)[6]

Prey / Diet Overlap

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Ophidascaris najae <Unverified Name>[7]
Rhabdias fuscovenosa[7]

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 2de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 3Venomous snakes and antivenoms search interface, World Health Organization
♦ 4Bathyergus suillus (Rodentia: Bathyergidae), NIGEL C. BENNETT, CHRIS G. FAULKES, LEANNE HART, AND JENNIFER U. M. JARVIS, MAMMALIAN SPECIES 828:1–7 (2009)
♦ 5Georychus capensis, Nigel C. Bennett, Sarita Maree, and Chris G. Faulkes, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 799, pp. 1-4 (2006)
♦ 6Otomys irroratus, G. Bronner, S. Gordon, and J. Meester, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 308, pp. 1-6 (1988)
♦ 7Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0