Black Mamba Snakes

by Natasha Oomen

One night, the guards saw a black mamba snake. Armed with sticks, they followed at a distance, where they watched it disappear into a hole. The next morning, when the snake could very well be gone already, they grabbed handfuls of leaves and made a pile in front of the hole, trying to smoke it out.

The first attempt did not work, so they tried an old tire instead. Using sticks and towels, they cranked up the heat in front of the hole. The end result was that the snake did not come out, part of the hedge is burnt to crisp, but they are confident that IF he was in the hole, he is dead now.

Creating more smoke using a tire at smoking the snake out of the hole.

A few days later, a guard saw a mamba snake in a tree. He threw rocks at it and it slithered its way down. A few seconds later, it came out of the two feet tall grass. He quickly stoned the meter-long snake, and proceeded to put it in a plastic bottle to show my brothers. In the meantime, our dogs were going crazy about it, trying to get to it. Hopefully they are smart enough in the future to leave them alone. My brothers, were quite excited to know that there are snakes on our property, and hope to catch one in the coming weeks. We have seen a few more snakes in that time, all of them black mambas. We are sure that we have lots more here, although my dad says ‘every snake killed is one less in our yard.’ The guards and my dad have very much warned us, to stay away from snakes, especially black mamba’s. Below, I will explain why.

A little bit about Black Mamba Snakes.

Lengthening up to 14 feet with an average of 8.2 feet, black mambas are the fastest snakes in the world, moving 4-5 meters per second, or 11-19 km per hour. Black mambas earned their name for their black mouths. Their bodies are usually grey, tan or brown, and their bellies white or grey. Mamba snakes are primarily in the southeast regions of Africa. They like to hide in stumps, hang from trees (which I am particularly not a fan of), or burrow in the ground. They like dry climates and are not often found in water. They sleep at night and hunt or bask in the day. Now, about the venom. The venom is very powerful. One bite can deliver as much as 120mg of venom. This is one of the highest venom levels in snakes in humans, two doses or bites will lead to death between the course of half an hour to four hours. But on a positive note, they don’t usually attack unless they feel threatened with no way out. They usually use their speed to flee from an attacker. Hopefully, this does not stop people from visiting us :)

At more than a meter long we hope that this is the last one we will see.