The King Cobra is listed under Schedule II of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972; Appendix II of CITES; and in the Least Concern category by IUCN (2004). It inhabits thick primary forests and estuarine mangrove swamps with heavy rainfall (Whitaker & Captain 2004) and has been reported to occupy humid jungles with thick undergrowth, cool swamps and bamboo clusters (David & Vogel 1996; Selich & Kestle 2002; Leviton et al. 2003; Anon 2005; Das et al. 2008). In terms of altitudinal distribution, this species is known to inhabit from 150m to 1530m in Nepal (Selich & Kestle 2002), sea level to 1800m in Sumatra (David & Vogel 1996) and has been reported up to 2181m in Mussoori Hills in India (Waltner 1975).
