Cobra's kiss sends man to hospital in India VIDEO

Aman was bitten in the face by a cobra after he tried to kiss it, and is now battling for his life in hospital.

A video posted to Twitter by AH Siddiqui shows the man from Karnataka state attempting to kiss the common cobra, Newsweek informs.

As the man holds the snake to his lips, the reptile lunges forward and bites him on the mouth. The man then drops the snake.

Other villagers can be seen attempting to catch the highly venomous snake, as it slithers away.

In a caption to the video, Siddiqui said the man was "a reptile expert" who went to kiss the cobra after "rescuing it."

Cobras are highly venomous snakes native to India, southern China, and Southeast Asia. They are considered one of the deadliest snakes in the world.

While its venom is not the most potent among all snake species, the amount administered in a single bite can be enough to kill 20 people.

"Sadly this kind of idiotic behavior is common here. There are literally thousands of snake 'rescuers' in India, some very serious and performing a valuable service, removing snakes from houses and gardens and releasing them elsewhere away from people," Romulus Whitaker, India-based herpetologist of the Madras Crocodile Bank, which works to educate villagers on snakebites, told Newsweek.

Whitaker said the snake in the video is a spectacled cobra "which has a powerful, mainly neurotoxic venom. [It] can kill a human within hours if enough is injected in a bite."