Nagas originate in Hindu mythology, in which they are magical beings that can take on various snake-like forms. Some appear as literal snakes and, indeed, the scientific name of the main cobra genus is Naja, based on the Sanskrit word for 'cobra'. Similarly, it's no coincidence that the feminine form of this word is "nagini" - although the exact English spelling can vary.Often capable of shape-shifting, mythic nagas can take on fully human or partially humanoid form, with the latter more usually resembling the yuan-ti and mariliths of D&D than the shape seen in the game (although this is not unknown). Nagas are generally said to be righteous, if not exactly benevolent, and are often set to guard the treasures of the gods, hence at least the 'guardian nagas' of D&D.
1E
The illustration in 1E is likely of the 'guardian' subtype. This has the typical form of D&D nagas of a humanoid head on a snake's body. The head looks to be mostly human, but has scaly skin extending up onto the scalp instead of hair and seems to have flap-like ears that don't parallel those of either humans or reptiles. The snake body is also unusual in that it has a long ridge of triangular plates running down the middle of its back, something that's obviously not seen in any real-world snake.
Even ignoring the triangular structures, there's no indication that the bodies of any of the three naga subtypes described in the 1E Monster Manual are directly based on any real-world species. Although cobras do vary significantly in colour, they are never green, being more typically some shade of brown. The evil spirit nagas have black-and-red stripes, which vaguely resembles the patterns of kraits or perhaps coral snakes, but doesn't directly match either, since they have white stripes as well.
The three types follow the usual stepwise progression of 1E, each having two extra hit dice, two extra points of intelligence, and one extra point of armour than the one below it on the ladder. They are, however, remarkably powerful. The largest, the guardian naga, is physically tougher than a red dragon, despite being less than half the length at 20 feet (6 metres) and with a much narrower and less bulky body. The armour isn't quite up to draconic levels but is still equivalent to plate steel.
3E
The illustration here is of a spirit naga, which turns out to have a more reptilian face than was implied in 1E, with a scaled forehead and flattened nose. It has snake-like fangs for teeth, which would be expected given its venomous bite, and a forked tongue. The latter is perhaps slightly surprising, since this appears to have evolved in snakes (among other reptiles) to improve their sense of smell, helping them essentially "taste" the air - and nagas do not have a particularly strong sense of smell. The guardian naga is described as having a "frill" down its back, which implies something more membranous than in 1E, but it's not conclusive, and, anyway, the original picture is ambiguous on this point.
The statistics are for the most part similar, allowing for changes in the rule system, thus making them less powerful than the new versions of dragons - as one would expect. They do, however, turn out to be stronger than the largest venomous snakes, but less agile, in both cases probably due to a larger bulk. In this respect, it's worth noting that the spirit naga is the size of a particularly large specimen of the world's longest snake species, the green anaconda, while the guardian naga is noticeably longer than that. And anacondas, of course, are constrictor snakes, not venomous ones.
The spirit naga is also less intelligent than in 1E, although still above average by human standards, which is unsurprising given its mastery of magic.
5E
The nagas of 5E have flaring hoods, a feature used as a threat display by real-world cobras and a few related species. The hood extends as a shield over the top of the head, which has a distorted human-like face in the same colour as the body, with a flattened nose and the same fangs and forked tongue as in 3E. The two most distinctive features of the earlier versions - the hair of the spirit nagas and the frill of the guardians - have both gone, leaving something that looks more obviously snake-like. Both species also have pale underbellies that are clearly distinct from the rest of their bodies, something seen, for example, in king cobras and Indian kraits but that was absent in the 3E spirit naga.
The strength of both types of naga has been toned down, although their agility has increased so that it's now superior to regular snakes. The spirit naga's intelligence has not only reversed the drop of 3E, it is now on a par with that of guardian nagas, something necessitated by the fact that it now uses wizard spells rather than those of a sorcerer. (The 1E version used a mix of wizard and clerical spells, but the actual stat was less tied into magic back then and wisdom was not typically defined for monsters).
5E nagas are also more clearly magical beings than before, most notably being able to resurrect themselves after death so that they are virtually indestructible in the long term. Despite which, they are listed as "monstrosities" rather than celestial/fiends, perhaps because they are intended to be native to the material plane.
Most of the naga's powers are explicitly magical in nature - the power to cast spells and so on. However, even the 5E versions, which don't need to eat, appear to be at least partially biological beings and are, in some sense, snake/human hybrids.
One of the most significant features of snakes is that many of them are venomous and this is obviously true of nagas, too. The venom is produced in modified salivary glands; the exact method of delivery varies between species, but cobras use the more sophisticated method of injecting through a hollow fang, rather than having it run down a groove in the tooth's surface. Cobra venom works by causing paralysis of the muscles involved in breathing, although it can have other effects, too. That of vipers and rattlesnakes, on the other hand, clots the blood, preventing the heart from pumping it around the body. (Which parallels how snake constriction kills - it doesn't crush the victim, or even suffocate them, it squeezes the arteries and veins so that blood can't flow through them).
Either way, the large size of nagas means that they likely produce rather a lot of venom, so it may not be terribly dangerous volume-for-volume compared with that of smaller snakes. In the real world, this is what we see with king cobras - their venom isn't especially deadly per se, but they do produce and inject a large amount of it, which can easily compensate.It's unclear why real-world snakes are immune to their venom, and some of them may well not be, especially since they don't bite each other very often. But such immunity is possible, and nagas have it - along of course, with immunity to all other forms of poison.
Guardian nagas are capable of spitting their poison at foes as well as directly injecting it. Spitting cobras do exist in the real world, spraying jets of the stuff out through holes in the front of the fangs, aiming at the target's eyes. However, this is not used to subdue prey since all it does is painfully blind the victim, allowing the snake to make a quick getaway while it tries to recover - which it may not, if it can't wash the stuff out. Unlike guardian naga venom, skin contact with real spitting cobra venom does nothing unless there's an open wound.
Snake anatomy is based on the standard reptilian pattern, but modified for a long, thin, body entirely lacking in limbs. Apart from the skull, which is humanoid in nagas, the skeleton usually consists solely of a backbone, lots and lots of ribs, and the hyoid bone in the throat, which anchors the base of the tongue. Contrary to the picture of the bone naga in 5E, the ribs don't run all the way down the tail, stopping around the level of the anus, where the hips would be if it had any.
Having said which, a few snakes do have remnants of the hind limbs. These are typically boas and the like, in which the structures form spurs on either side of the genitalia, where they're probably used to enhance grip during mating.
In terms of soft anatomy, snakes have all the organs you'd expect to find in any other reptile, such as liver, spleen, pancreas, gallbladder, and so on. There's a tendency for paired organs, such as the kidneys, to be placed one in front of each other (albeit on opposite sides of the body) in order to fit in, but there's nothing obviously missing. The lungs are something of an exception, since only the right one is typically functional, and that includes an air sac towards the rear of no obvious function except possibly as a flotation device in sea snakes. The left lung is tiny, and sometimes missing altogether; so far as we can tell, it does little if anything useful for the snake.
The great majority of snake species lay eggs, in the same way that most other reptiles do. But there are some exceptions, albeit not among cobras. Sea snakes are an obvious example, since they cannot move about on land even to the extent that turtles can, but there are some land-based snakes that don't either, such as the death adders. These snakes are not truly viviparous, bearing young as mammals do, but instead produce what are essentially shell-less eggs that they never lay, but carry around safely inside their bodies until they 'hatch'.
Having said all that, however, it is not obvious that nagas, especially as presented in the later editions, reproduce at all. By 5E they are immortal and almost unkillable entities created by some lost race in the distant past, while even in 3E at least some of them are the creations of the gods. If this is the case, any form of reproduction might even be counter-productive, and not needing to do so would get around the issue of how they would meet up, given that they spend their solitary lives guarding treasure in remote locations.
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