Sri lankan and Indian cobras share African origins
Summary and headline written by AI from the source article. How we work
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science studied cobras, known as spectacle cobras (Naja naja), across India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka, and discovered that the cobras in Sri Lanka have a distinct genetic lineage from those on the Indian mainland.
This finding revisits a question raised in 1939 by a Sri Lankan zoologist, P. E. P. Deraniyagala, who first described a color variation of the cobra found in Sri Lanka.
Deraniyagala proposed it as a distinct variation, but it was later considered a color variation of the Indian cobra. The cobra holds a strong cultural place in Sri Lanka, appearing in Buddhist stories, ancient carvings, and traditional dances. While scientists have not yet declared the Sri Lankan cobra a separate species, the new genetic evidence supports the idea that it may be. Researchers are leaving the final taxonomic decision to specialists.
The study suggests that cobras in both Sri Lanka and India originally came from Africa around two million years ago, before becoming geographically separated.
