Spitting cobras' venom contains an additional group of toxins called phospholipases A2, which together with cytotoxins create a synergistic effect producing instant pain.
Notes on verification
Confirmed by peer-reviewed Science paper (Kazandjian et al. 2021) and corroborated by multiple independent sources including AAAS news, EurekAlert, C&EN, and university press releases, all describing the same PLA2-cytotoxin synergistic pain mechanism.
Sources
- Spitting Cobra venom reveals how evolution often finds the same answer to a common problem | ScienceDaily (sciencedaily.com)
- https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abb9303 (science.org)
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33479150/ (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
- https://www.science.org/content/article/spitting-cobras-venom-evolved-inflict-pain (science.org)
- https://cen.acs.org/biological-chemistry/proteomics/cobra-evolved-spit/99/web/2021/02 (cen.acs.org)