The Quick and the Dead

Sculpture of a Cobra and a Banded Mongoose

Bronze Africa ‘The Quick and the Dead’

The cobra and the mongoose have a long and I suppose, a violent history. The little banded mongoose depicted in this piece is as nimble as quicksilver. Failure to be quick is to die a slow and painful death from the bite of a snake.

So here then is classic stand-off, the cobra and the mongoose. If one was to put money on the outcome I would bet on the mongoose. The snake strikes forward faster than you can imagine but its recoil system is slow after he has struck. The mongoose is never there when the snake strikes, he has moved out of the danger zone even quicker.

It is when the snake is at full stretch and extended in his missed strike that the mongoose bites into the neck just behind the jaw. That is all it takes!

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