The snake in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book is Kaa.
Kaa is a large python who appears in Kipling’s 1894 collection The Jungle Book and its 1895 sequel, The Second Jungle Book. In the original stories, Kaa is an old and powerful jungle character who sometimes assists Mowgli, the human child raised among wolves.
Many modern readers know Kaa through animated and live-action adaptations. Disney’s 1967 animated film presents Kaa as a comic antagonist who tries to hypnotize Mowgli, while other adaptations portray the character differently. These versions are interpretations rather than the complete source characterization.
Kaa’s species is not always identified consistently across adaptations. Kipling’s setting and descriptions associate the character with a giant Indian snake, commonly treated as a python. The name Kaa is therefore the stable answer, while labels such as “anaconda” or “cobra” are not accurate descriptions of the original character.