As large and highly venomous snakes, king cobras have very few natural predators. Mongooses are able to hunt and kill these snakes, and they sometimes get picked off by large birds of prey.

mongoose

Ammonia: Snakes dislike the odor of ammonia so one option is to spray it around any affected areas. Another option is to soak a rug in ammonia and place it in an unsealed bag near any areas inhabited by snakes to deter them away.

It is no doubt that king cobras do occasionally consume large prey such as monitor lizards or even pythons. One cannot but wonder how the snake is able to make dynamic decisions and evaluate the risks and gains of pursuing prey such as a rock python, which can potentially kill the cobra by constricting it.

about 45 minutes

eastern diamondback rattlesnake

reticulated python

Medusa is currently housed at “The Edge of Hell Haunted House” in Kansas City. Her handlers say she can actually tell when it’s “showtime” for patrons, as she will go into what they call performance mode.

Perseus, in Greek mythology, the slayer of the Gorgon Medusa and the rescuer of Andromeda from a sea monster. Because the gaze of Medusa turned all who looked at her to stone, Perseus guided himself by her reflection in a shield given him by Athena and beheaded Medusa as she slept.

According to Hesiod’s Theogony, she was one of three Gorgon sisters born to Keto and Phorkys, primordial sea gods; Medusa was mortal, while the others, Stheno and Euryale, were immortal. The best known myth recounts her fateful encounter with the Greek hero Perseus.

Gorgo

Because the gaze of Medusa turned all who looked at her to stone, Perseus guided himself by her reflection in a shield given him by Athena and beheaded Medusa as she slept. He then returned to Seriphus and rescued his mother by turning Polydectes and his supporters to stone at the sight of Medusa’s head.

In this popular version the Medusa is a monster with hair of a thousand snakes. She is under a curse which causes everything she looks at to turn to stone. Cixous explains that this monstrous image of the Medusa exists only because it has been directly determined by the male gaze.

Athena’s enraged action of transforming the beautiful young maiden Medusa into a monster as punishment for the “crime” of having been raped in her temple is discussed as illustrating an outcome of the lack of resolution of the little girl’s early triangular conflicts.

Athena, also spelled Athene, in Greek religion, the city protectress, goddess of war, handicraft, and practical reason, identified by the Romans with Minerva. She was essentially urban and civilized, the antithesis in many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors.

Athena became the patron goddess of the city of Athens after a competition with Poseidon, and he remained on the Acropolis in the form of his surrogate, Erechtheus….

In her aspect as a warrior maiden, Athena was known as Parthenos (Παρθένος “virgin”), because, like her fellow goddesses Artemis and Hestia, she was believed to remain perpetually a virgin. Athena’s most famous temple, the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis, takes its name from this title.

Triton

Amphitrite

Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although the last son regurgitated by his father….

Cronus