Talk:Naja

Etymology

Can anyone explain why this genus is named Naja rather than Naga? I've always wondered about this. Mia229 (talk) 09:41, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

The word was probably derived from the Sinhala (Sri Lankan majority language) Naya rather than the Sanskrit Nag or Naga.

Caissaca (talk) 18:18, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Naja

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Naja's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Bro73":

• From Snakebite: Brown JH. 1973. Toxicology and Pharmacology of Venoms from Poisonous Snakes. Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas. 184 pp. LCCCN 73-229. ISBN 0-398-02808-7.
• From Daboia: Brown JH. 1973. Toxicology and Pharmacology of Venoms from Poisonous Snakes. Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas. 184 pp. LCCCN 73-229. ISBN 0-398-02808-7.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 19:25, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Type Specie in error...

The Type Specie is Naja naja. What is listed, Coluber naja, is an old name which is currently a synonym for the Type Specie. 165.120.113.83 (talk) 11:12, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

First off, it's "specieS" with an "s," as "specie" is unminted money. Secondly, and more importantly, the type species to be presented is what was originally written in the initial description, and not its current valid synonym.--Mr Fink (talk) 13:16, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Misleading Info in the Venom Section

I believe some sources have been twisted in favor of the Caspian cobra (N. oxiana) being "the most venomous cobra species".

1. NONE of the sources concludes that N. oxiana is the most toxic. What I read in the venom section are pieces of data from DIFFERENT studies listing LD₅₀ values of SOME Naja species a given project covers. Dilution scales, environmental factors, species of animals to be tested on, etc may NOT be identical, so it is not accurate to directly compare statistics from different literatures. For instance, N. oxiana on this league with an i.v. value of 0.96 mg/kg is the second least toxic Naja species, only above N. nigricollis while N. atra is the most toxic among the nine true cobras it covers. I suggest to remove such comparative statements to leave all the data & species a particular project covers. We could only state that Species A is the most toxic among A, B, C & D tested by this project while E is the one among E, F, G & H the other project concludes.
2. Some sources do not support claims that they are made to support. I personally have a copy of the book Snakes of Medical Importance - Asia-Pacific Region (Ref no.32) on hand. The purported pages mention NOTHING about the mortality rate of N. oxiana. Verification or clean-up ought to be done on this section to ensure all the statistics are valid.

RoyalRover (talk) 17:16, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Also, they left out three extinct cobras, Naja Austriaca, Naja Depereti, and Naja Robusta.

Naja Austriaca (Bachmayer & Szyndlar, 1985) lived in Austria, Naja Depereti (Hoffstetter, 1939) lived during the Pliocene of France, and Naja Robusta (Meylan, 1987), lived during the Miocene of Tanzania and was the first fossil spitting cobra. 100.37.233.93 (talk) 14:21, 20 January 2024 (UTC)