Yup. I have seen O hannahs hold a grudge.
i was helping a friend medicate and remove eyecaps from a 10 foot King. This of course was done through tubing. Anyone who has ever tried to Tube a cobra knows that this can be adaunting task. particularly with one of this size. We did find a nice method. By grabbing the King about a foot behind the hood with Gentle Giant Tongs, he went into escape mode and dropped the hood and a tube could be put over his head. But it took about 30 minutes of trial and error to find out this little trick. naturally i was the one with the tongs. Once acclimated, he went on display at the serpentarium. many days for up to a YEAR after that, there could be 20 kids pounding on the glass and he would just lay there complaicent. As soon as he got a glimpse of me, he would rear up and hit the glass repeatedly. I was the only one he did this with. Very intimidating and i rarely worked with him directly again. But it did come in handy during cage cleaning time. I could stand by the glass and he was so focused on me that he ignored his water dish being removed (with tongs) and so forth.
I will also never forget the most vicious and intelligent snake i have ever had the "pleasure" of working with. She was a 9' female. She came from Mardi Snipes at Coastal Reptiles. Anyone who knows Mardi knows the he is an amazing handler with great instincts and one of the best dealers and all around. I have never seen him anything but calm and collected when working with snakes. This King chased HIM out of the room 3 times. Finally he had to throw a bag over her head from accross the room and then go in with a bag stick. Needless to say, she promptly arrived at my firend's serpentarium. We 2 of the 3 bags off of her (triple bagged!!!) and placed the last one in the cage. Cut the zip tie and attached a string so that we could unbag her withthe cage closed. She stayed hooded for over 8 hours straight!! She did not act like a cobra. When she struck, she would do a typical cobra strike/fall. But as soon as she hit the ground, she chased you wide open mouth along the floor! When tonged in Gentle Giants, she bit the tongs and anything else she could reach. She stopped, looked at where the tongs had her, followed them up with her eyes and saw my friend on the other end. Immediately she tried to strike him but could not. After a few seconds of "conteplation" she began VIPER STRIKING!!! She S-ed up and lunged. Each lunge got her another half inch closer to him! Let's just say that she had a nice pair of Gentle Giants as a cage decoration for a while. The time came that she got sold and i helped him prepare her for shipping. We had a very clever maneuver for bagging her which i wont go into detail about. After several dry runs (a rarety), we started the maneuver. I will never forget the feeling when I went to tie the bag and her tail flew out of the bag and slapped me on the arm! (she was still restrained with tongs even after she was int he bag). To remove the tongs, I had to lay a hook across mouth of the bag so he could tie it. i have never seen one snake put so much venom into a bag, nor had one make me Hop-Scotch more trying to keep the hook laid! Truly a one of a kind snake in my eyes and a memory that i will never forget.
So yes, given just those two examples, i would have to say King Cobra is an intelligent creature.
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