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The Black Mamba is a snake that belongs to the family of elapidae, which means it enters a snake category. highly poisonous, of which not all of them can be part and of which, without a shadow of a doubt, Mamba Negra is the queen.
Few snakes are as bold, as agile and as unpredictable as the black mamba, with high danger associated with these characteristics, its bite is lethal and although it is not the most venomous snake in the world (this species is found in Australia), it occupies second place on that list. Want to know more about this amazing species? So don't miss this Animal Expert article where we talk about Black Mamba, the most venomous snake in Africa.
How is the black mamba?
The black mamba is a snake native to Africa and is found distributed in the following regions:
- Northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo
- Ethiopia
- Somalia
- east of uganda
- Southern Sudan
- Malawi
- Tanzania
- southern Mozambique
- Zimbabwe
- Botswana
- Kenya
- Namibia
Adapts to a large amount of terrain ranging from the forests more populous up to semiarid desertss, although they rarely live in terrain that exceeds 1,000 meters in altitude.
Its skin can vary from green to gray, but it gets its name from the color that can be seen inside its completely black mouth cavity. It can measure up to 4.5 meters in length, weighs approximately 1.6 kilograms and has a life expectancy of 11 years.
It is a daytime snake and highly territorial, that when he sees his lair threatened is capable of reaching a surprising speed of 20 km/hour.
hunting the black mamba
Obviously a snake of these characteristics is a big predator, but acts through the ambush method.
The black mamba waits for the prey in its permanent lair, detecting it mainly through vision, then lifts a large part of its body onto the ground, bites the prey, releases the poison and withdraws. Wait for the prey to fall victim to paralysis caused by the poison and die. It then approaches and ingests the prey, digesting it completely in an average period of 8 hours.
On the other hand, when the prey shows some kind of resistance, the black mamba attacks in a slightly different way, its bites are more aggressive and repeated, thus causing the death of its prey more quickly.
The poison of the black mamba
The poison of the black mamba is called dendrotoxin, it is a neurotoxin that acts mainly by causing respiratory muscle paralysis through the action it exerts on the nervous system.
An adult human being only needs 10 to 15 milligrams of dendrotoxin to die, on the other hand, with each bite, the black mamba releases 100 milligrams of venom, so there is no doubt that your bite is lethal. However, knowing it through theory is fantastic but avoiding it ends up being essential to keep living.
