Is this king cobra drinking Sprite in the viral video?
A video of a cobra drinking Sprite has gone viral on social media.
By Sunanda Naik Published on 17 Oct 2022 12:36 PM GMT
Hyderabad: A video of a cobra drinking Sprite has gone viral on social media.
In the viral video, a cobra can be seen drinking from a green bottle. There is no doubt that the snake looks completely exhausted.
The viral YouTube video claims that the poor snake was drinking Sprite.
Let's find out what's in the bottle!
FACT CHECK
It's indeed not new in India to feed snakes a variety of things like milk without knowing whether the poor snake will actually be able to digest it. Ahh!! It's a never-ending debate.
NewsMeter ran a keyword search and found that the well-known media brand and digital publisher 'The Dodo' had tweeted the video in June 2021. It wrote, "Thirsty cobra takes the littlest sips of water from a Sprite bottle during his rescue."
Taking a cue from this, we ran a keyword search on YouTube and found the full video on The Dodo's YouTube channel. The video description gave talks of the rescue operation: "This king cobra was found trapped in a fishing net on New Year's Day near a rice paddy in East India. When the local villagers found the trapped snake, they called in snake rescuer Mirza Arif. Arif uses scissors to cut the fishing net off, but not before giving the cobra sips of water from a Sprite bottle to quench his thirst. After being freed from the net, the snake was later released near where he was found."
We also found report by Kalinga TV and India.com about the rescue operation.
The cobra was drinking water after it was rescued and not Sprite.
Hence, the claim is false.
