Is the pink cobra rescued in Dhaka an albino?

Workers at a factory in Dhaka’s Demra had already killed two snakes when they spotted a third—a pale pink cobra. This time, a worker called wildlife rescuers.

The foot-long snake was rescued on Thursday (October 29), drawing attention for its unusual coloring and raising a question: is it albino?

Rescuer Saif Rudro identified it as a juvenile monocled cobra (Naja kaouthia), locally known as padma gokhra—a venomous species.

Rudro said he rescued the snake on behalf of the Wildlife and Snake Rescue Team in Bangladesh after workers at the insulation factory contacted the organization.

Workers had never seen a white or pale pink snake before and were both surprised and frightened, he said.

Rudro told Daily Waadaa that the two snakes killed earlier were also unusually colored, describing them as white.

He said consultations with experts at the Venom Research Centre at Chattogram Medical College had established that the surviving cobra was albino.

“Yes, you can definitely call it albino,” he told Waadaa, attributing its appearance to a genetic condition.

Researchers quoted by The Climate Watch, however, offered a more cautious assessment.

Mohammad Noman, an associate researcher at the Venom Research Centre, told the outlet that albinism was one possible explanation, but physical examination and scientific tests would be needed to establish the cause of its coloring.

An unusual color alone, he cautioned, does not make the snake a new species.

Albinism is a genetic condition that reduces or prevents the production of melanin, the pigment responsible for much of an animal’s dark coloring. Blood vessels beneath the skin can become more visible, giving it a pinkish appearance.

Albino snakes are not necessarily white; other pigments can leave them looking yellow, orange or pink.

Australia Zoo in Queensland, for example, keeps an albino Burmese python named Alimah with white and yellow scales, according to the zoo.

Yet similar colors can also be natural variations. Costa Rica’s Clodomiro Picado Institute lists yellow, gold, pink and white among the eyelash viper’s colors, explaining that its golden form is a color variant rather than a separate species.

Mohammad Mizanur Rahman, director of the Forest Department’s Wildlife Crime Control Unit, told The Climate Watch that photographs or external appearance alone could not confirm whether the Demra cobra was albino.

The snake’s physical condition has also raised concerns. Noman said photographs appeared to show incompletely shed skin—a process that can be disrupted by weakness or environmental conditions. The cause in this case remains unclear.

Rudro told Waadaa that the cobra remained in his care in Dhaka for treatment and that he planned to release it into a suitable habitat once it recovered.

An architecture student at Dhaka Government Polytechnic Institute, Rudro said he had rescued more than 100 snakes. He previously served as the rescue organization’s Noakhali representative and continued volunteering after moving to Dhaka for his studies.

Bangladesh has recorded unusually colored cobras before. In November 2023, residents of Bhabanagar village in Jhenaidah’s Maheshpur upazila killed a yellowish-white cobra. Conservation workers later collected its carcass, according to The Climate Watch.

There are 89 confirmed snake species in Bangladesh, about 70 percent of them non-venomous, according to a 2025 review published in the journal Herpetozoa.