One Snake, Four Species: teacher key

King Cobras, grade 11 edition, written for 11th grade. A 2024 study of museum specimens and DNA suggests there is not one king cobra species but four. The change shows how scientists keep revising the tree of life.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. In what year did Theodore Cantor first describe the king cobra?
   • 1864
   • 1836 (answer)
   • 2024
2. What did the 2024 revision study?
   • Only nests in the wild
   • Satellite pictures
   • 148 whole and five skeletal specimens (answer)
3. How many king cobra species do scientists now recognize?
   • Four (answer)
   • One
   • Two
4. Why might the IUCN need new risk checks after the revision?
   • Each new species may face its own pressures (answer)
   • They all stop living near water
   • Their venom is the same
5. In this book, what is a neotype?
   • A kind of venom
   • A deep split in DNA
   • A new reference specimen (answer)

Words

• neotype: reference specimen
• phylogenetic: family-tree
• mitochondrial: inherited from mothers
• specimens: samples studied
• triangulation: finding by angles