A
story as old as time, Cleopatra exits her mortal form, aiming for a better
life when she is reincarnated.
"Asp" is the modern anglicisation of the word "aspis", which in antiquity referred to any one of several venomous snake species found in the
Nile region. The specific epithet, aspis, is a Greek word that means "viper". It is believed that aspis referred to what is now known as the Egyptian cobra.
HISTORIC
REPRESENTATION
Throughout dynastic and Roman
Egypt, the asp was a symbol of royalty. Moreover, in both Egypt and Greece, its potent venom made it useful as a means of execution for criminals who were thought deserving of a more dignified death than that of typical executions.
In some stories of Perseus, after killing Medusa, the hero used winged sandals to transport her head to King Polydectes. As he was flying over Egypt, some of her blood fell to the ground, which spawned asps and amphisbaena.
According to Plutarch, the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, in preparing for her own suicide, tested various deadly poisons on condemned people and concluded that the bite of the asp (from the Greek word aspis, usually meaning an Egyptian cobra in Ptolemaic Egypt, and not the European asp) was the least terrible way to die; the venom brought sleepiness and heaviness without spasms of pain. Some believe it to have been a horned viper, though in 2010, German historian Christoph Schaefer and toxicologist Dietrich Mebs, after extensive study into the event, came to the conclusion that rather than enticing a venomous animal to bite her, Cleopatra actually used a mixture of hemlock, wolfsbane and opium to end her life.
Nonetheless, the image of suicide-by-asp has become inextricably connected with Cleopatra, as immortalized by William Shakespeare:
With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate
Of life at once untie: poor venomous fool
Be angry, and dispatch.
— Cleopatra, Act V, scene II
Antony and Cleopatra
Othello also famously compares his hatred for Desdemona as being full of "aspics' tongues" in Act 3, Scene III of Shakespeare's play Othello.
EGYPTIAN COBRA
The Egyptian cobra (Naja haje) is one of the most venomous species of snakes in North Africa, and has bitten many humans. It averages roughly 1.4 metres (4.6 ft) in length; the longest specimen recorded so far measured 2.59 metres (8.5 ft).
DESCRIPTION
The Egyptian cobra is a large species. The head is large and depressed and slightly distinct from the neck. The neck of this species has long cervical ribs capable of expanding to form a hood, like all other cobras. The snout of the Egyptian cobra is moderately broad and rounded. The eye is quite big with a round pupil. The body of the Egyptian cobra is cylindrical and stout, with a long tail. The length of the Egyptian cobra is largely dependent on subspecies, geographical locale, and population. The most recognizable characteristics of this species are its head and hood.
The colour is highly variable, but most specimens are some shade of brown, and often a "tear-drop" mark below the eye. Some are more copper-red or grey-brown in colour. Specimens from northwestern Africa (Morocco) are almost entirely black. The ventral side is mostly a creamy white, yellow brown, grayish, blue grey, dark brown or black in colouration, often with dark spots.
HABITAT
Naja haje occurs in a wide variety of habitats like, steppes, dry to moist savannas, arid semi-desert regions with some water and vegetation. This species is frequently found near water. The Egyptian cobra is also found in
agricultural fields and scrub vegetation. It also occurs in the presence of
humans, where it often enters houses. It is attracted to villages by rodent pests (rats) and domestic chickens. There are also notes of the Egyptian cobra
swimming in the
Mediterranean
Sea, and is often found in water.
BEHAVIOUR
The Egyptian cobra is a terrestrial and crepuscular or nocturnal species. It can, however, be seen basking in the sun at times in the early morning. This species shows a preference for a permanent home base in abandoned animal burrows, termite mounds or rock outcrops. It is an active forager, sometimes entering human habitations, especially when hunting domestic fowl. Like other cobra species, it generally attempts to escape when approached, at least for a few metres, but if threatened it assumes the typical upright posture with the hood expanded, and strikes. This species prefers to eat
toads, but it will prey on small mammals,
birds, eggs, lizards and other snakes. It is an intermediate host of the acanthocephalan parasite Pachysentis ehrenbergi.
VENOM
The venom of the Egyptian cobra consists mainly of neurotoxins and cytotoxins. The average venom yield is 175 to 300 mg in a single bite, and the murine subcutaneous LD50 value is 1.15 mg/kg. However, Mohamed et al. (1973) recorded LD50 (mice) values of 0.12 mg/kg and 0.25 mg/kg via intraperitoneal injections of specimens from Egypt. Irwin et al. (1970) studied the venom toxicity of a number of elapids, including Naja haje from different geographical locations. Venom potency ranged from 0.08 mg/kg to 1.7 mg/kg via intravenous injections on mice.
The study also found that Egyptian cobra specimens from northern Africa, particularly those from Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya, to have significantly more potent venom than N. haje specimens found in the species' more southern and western geographical range, including Sudan and those from West Africa (Senegal, Nigeria, and Mali).
The venom affects the nervous system, stopping the nerve signals from being transmitted to the muscles and at later stages stopping those transmitted to the heart and lungs as well, causing death due to complete respiratory failure. Envenomation causes local pain, severe swelling, bruising, blistering, necrosis and variable non-specific effects which may include headache, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, dizziness, collapse or convulsions along with possible moderate to severe flaccid paralysis.
Unlike some other African cobras (for example, the red spitting cobra), this species does not spit venom.
CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE
The Egyptian cobra was represented in Egyptian mythology by the cobra-headed goddess Meretseger. A stylised Egyptian
cobra - in the form of the uraeus representing the goddess Wadjet - was the symbol of sovereignty for the Pharaohs who incorporated it into their diadem. This iconography was continued through the end of the ancient Egyptian civilization (30
BC).
Most ancient sources attribute the deaths of the Egyptian queen Cleopatra and her two handmaidens to the bite of an Egyptian cobra after the fall of
Egypt to Octavian. The snake was reportedly smuggled into her chambers in a basket of figs. Plutarch wrote that
Cleopatra had experimented on condemned prisoners with various poisons and snake venoms, finding aspis venom to be the most painless of all fatal toxins. In
Ptolemaic Egypt, the term "aspis" (an ancient Greek word referring to a wide variety of venomous snakes) was most likely an Egyptian cobra. This aspect of her apparent suicide has been questioned in recent years, as the relatively large size of the snake would have made it difficult to conceal, and because Egyptian cobra venom is slow-acting and does not always cause death.
PETS
The Egyptian cobra garnered increased attention in Canada in the fall of 2006 when a pet cobra became loose and forced the evacuation of a house in Toronto for more than five months when it was believed to have sought refuge in the home's walls. The owner was fined $17,000 and jailed for a year.
ETYMOLOGY & TAXONOMY
Naja haje was first described by Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus in 1758. The generic name naja is a Latinisation of the Sanskrit word nāgá (नाग) meaning "cobra". The specific epithet haje is derived from the
Arabic word ḥayya (حية) which literally means "snake". The snouted cobra
(Naja annulifera) and Anchieta's cobra (Naja anchietae) were formerly regarded as subspecies of Naja
haje, but have since been shown to be distinct species. The Arabian populations were long recognised as a separate subspecies, Naja haje
arabica, and the black populations from Morocco sometimes as Naja haje
legionis. A recent study found that the Arabian cobra constitutes a separate species, Naja
arabica, whereas the subspecies legionis was synonymised with N. haje. The same study also identified the West African savanna populations as a separate species and described it as Naja
senegalensis.
The cladogram below illustrates the taxonomy and relationships among species of Naja following Van Wallach et al. (2009), with subgenus Uraeus resolved following Trape et al. (2009):
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