Elapidae (/əˈlæpədiː/, commonly known as elapids /ˈɛləpədz/, from Ancient Greek: ἔλαψ élaps, variant of ἔλλοψ éllops "sea-fish")[6] is a family of snakes characterized by their permanently erect fangs at the front of the mouth.

Members of the family have a wide range of sizes, from the 18 cm (7.1 in) white-lipped snake to the 5.85 m (19 ft 2 in) king cobra.

Terrestrial elapids look similar to the Colubridae; almost all have long, slender bodies with smooth scales, a head covered with large shields (and not always distinct from the neck), and eyes with rounded pupils.

Exceptions to these generalizations occur; for example, certain adders (Acanthophis) have commonalities with the Viperidae family, such as shorter, stout bodies, rough/keeled scales, broad heads, cat-like pupils and ovoviviparous (internal hatchings with live births).

Furthermore, they can also be sluggish, ambush predators with partially fragmented head shields, similar to rattlesnakes or Gaboon vipers.

The king cobra is the world's longest venomous snake with a maximum length of 5.85 m (19.2 ft) and an average mass of 6 kg (13 lb).

[7] All elapids have a pair of proteroglyphous fangs to inject venom from glands located towards the rear of the upper jaw (except for the genus Emydocephalus, in which fangs are present as a vestigial feature but without venom production, as they have specialized toward a fish egg diet, making them the only non-venomous elapids).

A few species are capable of spraying their venom from forward-facing holes in their fangs for defense, as exemplified by spitting cobras.

Many species are more or less specialized burrowers (e.g. Ogmodon, Parapistocalamus, Simoselaps, Toxicocalamus, and Vermicella) in either humid or arid environments.

Some species have very generalised diets (euryphagy), but many taxa have narrow prey preferences (stenophagy) and correlated morphological specializations, for example feeding almost exclusively on other serpents (especially the king cobra and kraits).

Experiments with the yellow-bellied sea snake, Hydrophis platurus, have shown that this species can satisfy about 20% of its oxygen requirements in this manner, allowing for prolonged dives.

Molecular evidence via techniques like karyotyping, protein electrophoretic analyses, immunological distance and DNA sequencing, suggests reciprocal monophyly of two groups: African, Asian, and New World Elapinae versus Australasian and marine Hydrophiinae.

Some of the protected species are: This however does not touch the number of elapidae that are under threat, for instance 9% of elapid sea snakes are threatened with another 6% near-threatened.

[20] A rather large road block that stands in the way of more species being put under protection is lack of knowledge of the taxa; many known species have little research done on their behaviors or actual population as they live in very remote areas or live in habitats that are so vast its nearly impossible to conduct population studies, like the sea snakes.