The black mamba is neither black nor as fast or aggressive as legend claims
Look at a black mamba and you will see olive, khaki, gunmetal or brown, almost never black. The name comes from the inside of its mouth, a bluish-black lining it flashes when alarmed. Much else in its fearsome reputation, from chasing people down to hunting humans, turns out to be exaggerated too.
Africa's longest venomous snake is outmatched worldwide only by the king cobra. Adults usually measure two to three metres, and a few have reportedly reached four and a half. Hatchlings emerge at under 60 centimetres but can hit two metres within a year. The zoologist Albert Günther described it formally in 1864 from a specimen gathered on David Livingstone's second Zambezi expedition, and its scientific name, Dendroaspis polylepis, means roughly many-scaled tree asp.
Stories of mambas outrunning horses are myths. On good ground it manages up to about 16 kilometres an hour over short bursts, and it cannot top 20. Nor is it looking for a fight. In the wild it rarely lets a person come within about 40 metres before slipping into brush or a burrow. Trouble starts when it feels cornered or its escape route is blocked. Then it gapes to show that dark mouth, spreads a narrow hood and hisses, and a sudden move by the intruder can trigger a rapid series of strikes. Because it can lift up to 40 percent of its body off the ground, bites may land high on the body, and its nerve-attacking venom acts fast.
Day to day, the mamba lives a routine life. It keeps a permanent lair in a termite mound, burrow or rock crevice, and in South Africa basks at set times each morning and afternoon, often returning to the same spot. It eats mostly small mammals and birds, striking once and then waiting for the prey to be paralysed before swallowing it, and can digest a meal in eight to ten hours.
Adults have few enemies beyond eagles, notably brown snake eagles. Mongooses and honey badgers partly resist the venom, because the receptors in their muscles do not bind the toxins.
Source: Black mamba
