Darrin Viley, age 9, of St. Louis, Mo.,  for his question:

CAN A MONGOOSE BE KILLED BY A SNAKE BITE?

The mongoose is a fierce little fighter and one of his mortal enemies is the deadly cobra. When he gets ready for battle, he fluffs up his fur so that he looks much bigger than he really is. The big snake rears up and strikes  but almost always he fails to dig in his deadly fangs. He may grab a mouthful of that fluffed up fur, or more likely the mongoose is quick enough to jump out of the way.

Sometimes the cobra really jabs the mongoose with his deadly poison. The snake venom may make the mongoose sick or even kill him. But as a rule it does not harm him as much as it does other animals. Sometimes a mongoose kills and eats a cobra. If he swallows the fangs, the poison gets into his blood and this most likely kills him. But as a rule, the mongoose kills the snake and gets away free.