During a jungle survival program February 20, 2013 taught by Royal Thai Special Forces in Sannapit, Thailand, U.S. Marines learned to catch cobras and drink their fresh blood, not to mention eat forest insects and pull the heads off of chicken. The training was part of Operation Cobra Gold 13, the 32nd edition of international military exercises hosted by the Thai. According to a U.S. Marines press release, Cobra Gold is the largest exercise of its kind in Asia and incorporates troops from five other nations in addition to the U.S. and Thailand. The Daily Mail reports that the Marines were invited to experience the local custom of drinking cobra blood after being taught to catch and kill cobras in the wild. As CNN notes, Cobra blood is believed to be a panacea and aphrodiasic in parts of Southeast Asia. In Jakarta, vendors can earn over $100 a night selling shots of cobra blood mixed with liquor. (Photo by Pornchai Kittiwongsakul/AFP Photo)

A woman cries as she watches the coffin containing the body of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez be taken from the hospital, where he died on Tuesday, to a military academy in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, March 6, 2013. Seven days of mourning were declared, all schools were suspended for the week and friendly heads of state were expected for an elaborate funeral on Friday. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

An octopus is filmed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ship Okeanos Explorer and its robotic sub. (Photo by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Spacewalker Mark Vande Hei took his own photograph during the first spacewalk of 2018, on January 23, 2018. These sky-high pictures are better known as “space-selfies”. (Photo by Mark Vande Hei/NASA)

Huang Wensi in action during her final training session in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, China, before she heads to Taiwan for her Asia Female Continental Super Flyweight Championship match, September 23, 2018. Huang is one of a small but growing number of women in China to embrace professional boxing, relishing its intense nature despite traditional stereotypes that steer women away from such activities. “A women is not just limited to being a wife or mother in the house”, she said. (Photo by Yue Wu/Reuters)

In this April 14, 2014 file photo, Hamamatou Harouna, 10, who lost the use of her legs to polio, crawls to the restroom on the grounds of the Catholic Church where she and hundreds of others found refuge after fleeing violence in her village, in Carnot, Central African Republic. Health authorities on Tuesday, August 25, 2020 are expected to declare the African continent free of the wild poliovirus after decades of effort, though cases of vaccine-derived polio are still sparking outbreaks of the paralyzing disease in more than a dozen countries. (Photo by Jerome Delay/AP Photo/File)

A member of Wagner group stands guard in a street in the city of Rostov-on-Don, on June 24, 2023. President Vladimir Putin on June 24, 2023 said an armed mutiny by Wagner mercenaries was a “stab in the back” and that the group's chief Yevgeny Prigozhin had betrayed Russia, as he vowed to punish the dissidents. Prigozhin said his fighters control key military sites in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don. (Photo by AFP Photo/Stringer)

A firefighter works outside of a building where an explosion and a fire broke out in Shimbashi area of Tokyo on July 3, 2023. (Photo by Yuichi Yamazaki/AFP Photo)