Venomous Creatures #5 - Black Mamba

Hello steemians and friends, welcome to another edition of Venomous Creatures. Today we would be looking at the fastest snake in the world, which is also the longest and most venomous snake in Africa, the Black Mamba. These snakes are so fierceful that people started telling tales and myths about of these creatures. Some people said that, these snakes runs faster than a horse, others said that, these snakes are so deadly that they would enter houses and kill everyone in it. These snakes are the most deadly in Africa and this is not a myth, it is a fact. I guess you guys are already eager to know more about the Black Mamba(smiles), don't worry yourself, because I would be discussing with you guys all the necessary details you need to know about these feared snakes. So relax yourself and get thrilled with this article I made just for you guys(smiles).

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^{[Source: Flickr. Author: Hape662. CCO Licensed]}

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Black Mamba - Dendroaspis Polylepis

The Black Mamba is the fastest snake in the world and also the longest and most venomous snake in Africa. These snakes are also known as Black-Mouthed Mamba, Southern Brown Mamba, or Swart Mamba. From the image above, I guess you guys would be wondering why these snakes are called Black Mamba, since their body are not black. The reason for their name is because of their inky-black color inside their mouth. They display their inky-black color inside their mouth to scare away and intimidate their predators. According to a renowned herpetologist Donald G. Broadley

If taken by surprise or cornered, the mamba usually attempts to intimidate the enemy. This was well demonstrated by a huge mamba I found in a gravel pit near Balla Balla. The snake was at least 12 feet in length and was basking between a large termitarium and a track. I cut off the mamba from its anthill and pushed a noose in front of it as it made for home. As it reached the noose, the mamba reared up to the level of my face, spread a broad "hood" and opened its mouth, displaying the black interior and formidable fangs. With that terrible head only 18" from my nose, I lost much of my enthusiasm and recoiled. Source.

These snakes are normally gray, olive or brownish in color, and this is dependent on their environment i.e their natural habitat. They like to camouflage in order to easily capture their preys and reduce their chances of being noticed by their predators. Yes guys, these deadly snakes have predators, but they are actually few, we would talk about that later.

This creature is also the second aggressive creature in the world, making it the most aggressive snake in the world. Although, these snakes are shy but when you confront or block their path to their home, they would become very aggressive. They could actually see a human, and run away but if there is no way to run apart from the path way of the human , they feel threatened and become very aggressive and would attack the human with multiple bites, as much as 45 times. According to Swaziland-born snake handler and snake expert Thea Litschka-Koen:

Black mambas will kill a dog or several dogs if threatened and it happens quite often. We also find dead cows and horses! We were called by the frantic family late one evening. When we arrived minutes later, two small dogs had already died and two more were showing severe symptoms of envenomation. Within 15 minutes we had found and bagged the snake. By this time the other two dogs were also dead. The snake must have been moving through the garden when it was attacked by the dogs. It would have struck out defensively, biting all the dogs that came within reach. The snake was bitten in several places on its body as well and died about a week later. Source.

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Scientific Classification - Kingdom: Animalia, Phylum: Chordata, Class: Reptillia, Order: Squamata, Suborder: Serpentes, Family: Elapidae, Genus: Dendroaspis, Species: D. polylepis, Binomial name: Dendroaspis Polylepis [Gunther, 1864]. Source

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These snakes are the fastest in the world, they can run up to 12.5 mph (20 km/h), so running away from these snakes won't be easy, except you are Usian Bolt with enough stamina(smiles). These snakes don't actually run to hunt their preys but to escape from threats/predators.

The generic name of these snakes is Dendroapis which combines two latin words, which are Dendro which means tree and Aspis which means snake , and when combined together it means Tree Snake. Although their generic name indicates that these snakes are arboreal in nature i.e living on trees but in reality they are more terrestrial in nature i.e living on dry land than arboreal in nature. They do live on trees but not as much as on land.

These snakes are about 6.6 - 9.8 feet length on an average, making them the second longest venomous in the world behind the King Cobra which is about 12 - 16 feet in length. The maximum length ever recorded of the Black Mamba was 14 feet (4.5 meters). Just imagine this for some moments. I personally won't wish to encounter these snakes in the wild, don't laugh me (hahaha).

Black Mambas are found in sub-Saharan areas of South and East Africa. There are countries where Black Mambas can be found and they include; Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, Tanzania, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, Mozambique, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Kenya. They are most common in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Although they have been incidence of the presence of these in some West Africa countries such as Chad, Nigeria, Mali and Central African Republic. These snake likes dry savannah, light woodlands, rocky hills or riverine forests with lots of rocks. These snakes are diurnal in nature i.e they are active during the day and at night they hide in hollow trees or termite mounds.

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Just like the Lionfish, Black Mamba are solitary in nature, it is only during breeding that they interact with each other for the purpose of mating. But unlike the Lionfish, the Black Mamba breed once every year. Black Mamba are dioecious i.e they reproduce sexually. The breeding season for the Black Mamba begins in the spring which is around the month of September. The male Black Mamba would travel distance in search of a female by using the scent trail which the females gives out during the breeding season.

The females are very selective and most times enjoys when two males fight over them(haha). In situations where there are two males, they must fight for the right to mate with the female, by performing what is called a Wrest Match. they do this by intertwining their bodies and raising their heads up to about 1 meter off the ground, with the aim of pinning each others head to the ground, in order to show their strength and dominance. Wrest Match are sometimes confused with actual mating between the male and female Black Mambas. The female would choose the victorious between the males to mate with. Once they are done mating, the male would go back to his home, but if the male is delaying leaving, the female would become very aggressive towards male. The gestation period of Black Mambas is about 2 - 3 months i.e 80 - 90 day, and during this period the female go in search for a suitable hatching location, usually a decaying vegetation, reason being that, the decomposition of the vegetation usually helps to heat which would help in warming the eggs and speeding up the hatching time. During this period the female Black Mambas are very aggressive and territorial in nature, a bad time to encounter these snakes. After the eggs have developed, they would deposit and then abandon the eggs, showing no parental care like the King Cobras. The juvenile Black Mambas would break their shells using their tooth. they are totally independent from birth and are totally responsible for fending for themselves. They are about 50 cm in length and are greyish-green in color. The hatchlings possess powerful venom from birth which they use to subdue their preys but unlike the King CObra hatchlings that delivers more powerful venom than their adult, the Black Mamba hatchlings delivers less powerful venom than their adults and that is why they are preyed upon. They reach maturity within a year having reached about 6.6 feet (2 meters) in length. The average life span of a Black mamba is 11 years.

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^{[Black Mambas Mating. Source: Pexels. Author: Vasanth Babu. CCO Licensed]}

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Black Mambas are voracious in nature. They feed on warm-blooded mammals, birds and also on other species of snakes. They are not cannibalistic in nature like King Cobras. When these snakes are going in search for preys, they move with their head raised above the ground and once they have identified their target/prey, they carefully monitor them and strike as soon as they get a good chance.

As soon as they strike, they retreat and wait for their venom to act in the prey, after about 10 - 15 minutes, they would go to check if the prey is already dead or not. If dead, they would begin to swallow the prey and if the prey is not yet dead, they would strike the prey multiple times in order to quicken it's death. When these snakes feeds on birds, they use a different approach. After they have struck the bird, they won't retreat and wait for the venom to act, instead they would coil the bird to the good, and wait for the venom to act.

These snakes mainly feed on mammals such as; rodents, squirrels, bushbabies, rock hyraxes and even bats. On rare occasions do they feed on snakes such as the mole snake, forest cobra, cape cobra and puffader. As I said earlier on, they are voracious in nature, hereby having very powerful enzymes which helps them to digest their prey easily within 8 - 10 hours.

As deadly as these snakes are, don't they have predators? They do, but the adult Black Mambas are normally not preyed upon by predators, in other words , if a Black mamba is able to become a fully grown adult, the only predators they would face would be the humans, and you can't classify humans as predators, because humans don't normally go hunting for these snakes as food, they kill them out of fear of the harm it can cause.So technically an adult Black Mamba has no specific predator.

But the juveniles are preyed upon by mongooses, foxes, cape file snakes and snake eagles. These predators mess with adult Black Mambas. The mongoose is known to be a major predator to even an adult King Cobra, but these creatures stay clear from the adult Black Mambas to tell you guys how deadly these snakes are. Even the apex large predators in the wild, do well, to stay clear from these, such as; lions, tigers, elephants, even a herd of buffalo and so on. If any of these apex predators sights a Black Mamba, they would go the opposite direction, in order to stay as far away as possible from these snakes. The Black Mamba is the only snake in the world that have been documented to have killed a fully grown Africa elephant.

The Black Mamba has the most rapid-acting venom of any snake in the world. It's venom consists of neurotoxins, cardotoxins, fasciculins and calciseptine. Once a Black Mamba injects it's venom into a human, within the next 7 - 10 minutes the individual would start showing neurological and neuromuscular symptoms such as; drowsiness, convulsions, inablility to speak, heavy sweating, excessive salivation, respiratory paralysis and so on. If left untreated, the symptoms becomes much more severe and eventually death will occur as a result of cardiovascular collapse or respiratory failure resulting from paralysis of the muscles used for breathing.

The bite from a Black Mamba is known to have a 100% mortality rate if left untreated, giving it's bite a nick name known as The Kiss Of Death. Black Mamba is known to have the shortest death time among all venomous snakes in the world. It's bites delivers about 100 - 200 mg of venom on an average and only about 10 -16 mg is capable of killing a healthy adult human. It is believed that a bite from Black Mamba is capable of killing about 15 - 40 adult humans, making these snakes the most feared in Africa. Studies have shown that it takes about 4 - 5 minutes for the Black Mamba's venom to kill a mouse, while the shortest death time of other venomous snakes is between 7 - 8 minutes.

However, in spite of the deadly nature of the Black mamba's venom, studies have shown that the Black Mamba's venom is a more powerful painkiller than morphine. Morphine is a very powerful painkiller but it is has some side effects such as; vomiting, muscle twitching, headaches and it is very addictive. The Black Mamba's venom is also as powerful as morphine with no side-effects whatsoever, making it a better painkiller than morphine.

Black Mambas have no specific conservation measure put in place to protect it. according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the current status of the Black Mamba is Least Concern.

Amazing Facts

• The Black Mamba is the longest venomous snake in Africa.
• The Black Mamba is the fastest venomous snake in the world.
• The Black Mamba is the most venomous snake in Africa.
• They are both Terrestrial and Arboreal in nature.
• They are diurnal in nature.
• They have the shortest death time among all species of snakes.

Thank You For Reading
Till Next Time

References

Ref 1 | Ref 2 | Ref 3 | Ref 4 | Ref 5

All images used in this article are free source licensed under the Creative Commons and are liable for commercial use.

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