Mamba

Genus Dendroaspis

Reptile

Transcript:

Today on Animal Fact Files we’re discussing mambas. I'm sure most of you have heard of the black mamba, but did you know there are four mamba species? The other three mamba species are green in color and are called the Eastern green mamba, the Western green mamba and the Jameson's mamba. All four mamba species have highly toxic venom which could prove fatal to a bitten human. Mambas can be found throughout Africa. The green varieties are arboreal. In fact, the genus name for these snakes means something along the lines of ‘tree snake’. Black mamba's can be found in trees, but they also favor places such as rock crevices, hollow logs, and termite mounds. They use these for resting and return to the same spot each night to sleep.

The eastern green mamba is the smallest of the mamba species and the black mamba is the largest. Green mambas average six feet in length but are able to reach over eight feet. Black mambas average eight feet but can get up fourteen feet long. Green mambas are green in color to help them blend in with their surroundings which helps them sneak up on prey. They are diurnal animals meaning they’re active during the day. Mambas favor a sit and wait hunting style. Black mambas appear dark brown and sometimes even olive colored. Their name does not come from the color of their scales but rather from the inside of their mouth. Black mambas have black mouths. Green mambas don’t have black mouths, just in case you were wondering.

Mamba's typically eat birds, small rodents, and lizards. In turn, they have few predators. That's because just two drops of their venom, at least in the case of black mambas, can kill a full-grown human. Most animals know to keep their distance. What's interesting, though, as deadly as mambas are, they're shy in reality and would rather run away from a fight. Green mambas will try to slip away up a tree and black mambas will race away to the safety of a hiding hole. And when they slither away they do so quickly reaching speeds up to 12 miles per hour over short distances. When cornered and forced to attack, they will flatten their neck, raise up their head, open their mouth and hiss. They're members of the cobra family which explains the neck flattening. If they do bite, they typically do so multiple times in successive hits injecting a lot of toxin. There is an antivenom for mambas, but it's not widely distributed and some bites can prove fatal in less than an hour. Prior to the creation of the antivenom, their bite was 100% fatal.

Mambas mate during the rainy season occurring between April and June. During this time males will fight with one another trying to force each other out of trees. They do not bite during this time. The combat is more ritualistic than aggressive. Females will lay up to 25 eggs in a small burrow which will incubate for about three months. Typically green mambas have smaller clutch sizes than black mambas. When the young snakes hatch they are anywhere from 1 to 2 feet long, again with green mambas at shorter lengths than black mambas. The babies are completely self-sufficient from birth and usually have just as much venom as their parents. They can live more than ten years in the wild and captive mambas have been known to live longer than twenty!

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