A Chinese driver, who is identified by only the last name Ma, was shocked to find a 2.7-meter-long king cobra stuck inside the engine compartment of her vehicle on April 11.
According to reports, the woman, who is pregnant, stopped her car in Maguan County in the Yunnan province of China to check out her engine after suspecting that something was wrong. And she sure was right, discovering a king cobra stuck in the vehicle's engine.
After she called the police and they arrived at the scene, Ma explained that she had spotted a snake while driving down the road earlier and had tried to avoid running over it. However, her efforts to avoid the serpent were apparently futile, as it managed to wrangle its way into her engine.
After 40 minutes of trying to coax the snake out of the engine, authorities were finally successful, using cooking oil as a lubricant to help the snake make its way out. The cobra was eventually transported to a wildlife sanctuary, Asia Times reported.
The king cobra is native to many parts of India, Southeast Asia and southern China and is the world's longest venomous snake.
Despite its name, the king cobra is not a "true" cobra, but instead the last surviving species of its own genus, more closely related to African snakes than fellow Asian cobras.
Although not typically aggressive in nature, preferring to escape from threats, the king cobra's bite delivers a dose of a neurotoxin that is one of the most potent snake venoms in the world.
King cobras have become increasingly threatened due to the fact that they are frequently hunted in China for medicinal purposes. The species' skin, meat and bile are all used in ancient Chinese medications. In addition, its venom is used in China to treat cholera, arthritic pain and tuberculosis.