Ophiophagus hannah (Cantor, 1836) – King Cobra

Type Locality: Sunderbans, West Bengal (India)
Known to be occurred in Uttarakhand in Western Himalayas to Arunachal Pradesh in Eastern Himalayas, down till southern India along the Eastern Ghats up to Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, in the Western Ghats and Andaman Islands (Stuart et al., 2012). A 30% population reduction of King Cobra is known from India over 75 years (Stuart et al., 2012). 
Possibly this may be a species complex because of its wider distribution (Stuart et al., 2012).

This species is listed as Vulnerable in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (https://www.iucnredlist.org/).

The species can be seen in pristine forests, mangrove swamps, agricultural areas with remnants of woodland, rivers, palm oil plantations and tea estates (Stuart et al., 2012). The reasons behind the population decline are habitat destruction, land conversion into agricultural fields or urban development and harvesting mature individuals from wild for medicinal purpose, pet and trading (Stuart et al., 2012).