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Rare albino cobra unable to survive in wild

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-09-05 15:11

The three-and-a-half foot reptile was the only one of his albino siblings to survive, and is now kept on his own in a specially constructed enclosure.

Goya the albino cobra plays up the attention he gets from zoo visitors. [Agencies]

Called Goya, he spends most of its day indoors due to his sensitivity to light, only venturing outside for his daily meal of five live rats.

Visitors flock to the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust in the Indian city of Chennai because of Goya's remarkable beauty, according to the trust's curator.

"We explain to them that Goya is actually lucky to be here because he would not survive for long in the wild as he has virtually no camouflage," Nikhil Whitaker said.

"Cobras in India are revered amongst the Hindu population, so you can imagine the interest a specimen such as this creates," he added.

"We sometimes think that he knows that he receives special attention and plays up to that."

Goya, who is a milky colour with shades of pink, was a gift from Dehiwala Zoo in Sri Lanka where they specially breed albino snakes.

Cobra bites can be fatal because of their deadly venom, but they only attack humans if they believe their survival is threatened.