Shock Poll: ONE QUARTER of Men Think They Could Beat a King Cobra in a Fight — Another 26% Don’t Think They Could Beat a House Cat

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According to a new poll, one quarter of men in the United States are confident that they could beat a king cobra in a fight — while another, presumably different, quarter of American men don’t think they could best a house cat in physical combat.

That means if you’re a dude, and you’re standing with three other dudes, one of you will see a king cobra and be like “Oh, you want these hands, bro?”, and another one will push you down while he’s fleeing Heathcliff in terror. And they might just be you.

Those are just two of the findings in a YouGov poll apparently written by animals planning a buffet.

Grizzly bears were considered the most daunting foes, but there were still 6 percent of respondents who thought they could beat down an ursine opponent, including 8 percent of men and 6 percent of women.

The gender split was greatest for the cobra, with three times as many men (23%) saying they could best the venomous viper as women (8%). Men were also much more confident than women in taking on dogs, geese, and eagles. Public Service Announcement: Geese will mess you up, guys!

Respondents were also polled on head-to-head matchups between animals, and the alleged King of the Jungle came in 6th:

The results show that the elephant wears the crown in the animal kingdom – but only slightly. Elephants had a win rate of 74%, just fractions of a percent ahead of their single-horned cousins – the rhinoceros – in second place, also on 74%.

Not far behind in third place is the grizzly bear, at 73%. This may raise eyebrows among zoologists, given that grizzlies far outperform their pale cousins the polar bear (ninth place, on 64%) despite the latter being far larger and more aggressive.

Also performing particularly well are tigers (70%), hippos (69%), lions (68%) and crocodiles (67%).

Unarmed humans won only 17 percent of their matchups, which means a bountiful feast of overconfident Americans — mostly men — if that rumble ever occurs.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that “6 percent of respondents … thought they could beat down an urine opponent,” a question which was not polled in this survey. While unpleasant, a urine opponent would likely be seen as much more easy to defeat than an ursine one. We regret the error.