Basilisk

Serpent

The basilisk is the world's largest snake and one of the most venomous creatures. They are quite rare, and the sighting of one is always followed by the spreading of age-old tales of its deadly qualities, followed by a witch hunt to kill it as soon as possible.

Appearance

The Basilisk can grow up to fifteen meters long, and its body is covered in thick scales with patterns in shades of brown, black, and gray.
They have long, venomous teeth, designed to hold onto prey.
They have horny protrusions on their skull, which grow longer, and more pronounced as they age.
Their eyes are dark, and they have narrow slits for pupils, which open wide in the dark.

Venom

Their venom is a neurotoxin. It attacks the nerves and rides the bloodstream to the brain, where it destroys everything it touches. It is so potent that a single drop could kill a grown elephant.
However, scholars can process the venom into several powerful medicines, mainly anesthetics.

Habitat

Basilisks like to have places to hide, underground and out of sight, which is why caves and crevices are their preferred home. However, they don't hunt there. When they get hungry, they go outside to warm up in the sun, and they will hunt any kind of large creature that they can fit in their mouth.
They don't need a lot of sunlight to fully warm up, but in the colder parts of the world, they will only do this in the summer.
In warmer climates, they may come out to eat at any time.

Reproduction

They are primarily solitary, and especially females will find a suitable place to live and stay within their territory for the entire duration of their lives, but the males will go looking for females. They have an excellent sense of smell, and once they have entered the female's territory, they will know. In that case, they will emit a certain pheromone, that allows the female to easily notice him, and if she is interested, she will go find him, if she's not, she will release a pheromone of her own, which tells him to piss off.

When fertilized, the female basilisk will lay a batch of up to five large eggs, safely hidden in her nest. If another predator finds these eggs, it will eat them, but no beast with a sense of self-preservation will enter a basilisk nest.
The babies are set outside of the nest the moment they are born, as baby basilisks are perfectly capable of defending themselves, and the mom can't be bothered to feed them.