Cobra vs. Mongoose
 

Damn the mongoose is pretty quick.

http://www.break.com/index/mongoosesnake.html

Actually the cobra has one of the slowest of the strikes from a snake. It's head simply falls while striking. If the mongoose had been pitted against even a diamondback rattlesnake, the mongoose would have been toast. A Gaboon viper is even faster. It looks like a huge slug, but you cannot even see it's strike. Some people learned that lesson the hard way. They thought they could just grab it by the tail only to instantly see the wrong side of a very venomous snake up close and personal.