A huge cobra was caught lurking in the grounds of a Buddhist temple in Thailand.

The massive 15ft serpent terrified monks as it chased after a smaller python up a tree at the Phrom Suthi Sakyaram Monastery in Chanthaburi province on October 17.

They called local snake wranglers to remove the reptiles from the temple grounds.

The animal catchers arrived at the scene and found the python curled up at the base of a longan tree near a monk's living quarters. They quickly caught and bagged it inside a sack before searching for the king cobra.

The officers found the venomous snake resting on the branches of an old tamarind tree. They used a cherry picker to reach the cobra as it had slithered too far above the ground.

The female cobra was found to have minor injuries. It was given water to cool off before being secured inside a plastic box.

The python and cobra were released into the wild, away from homes.

The reticulated python is found throughout Southeast Asia, where they live in forests, swamps, canals and even in cities, causing them to come into conflict with humans. The species is one of the world's largest snakes and can eat humans, cats, dogs, birds, rats and other snakes.

Researchers found that 7,000 people are treated for snake bites each year in Thailand. Suchai Suteparuk from the Division of Toxicology at Chulalongkorn University reported that 30 of those die, with cobras being the biggest killer.