A snake catcher said that he and his coworkers caught two very poisonous black mamba snakes on the same South African property. The snakes seemed to be looking for a mate.
Nick Evans is a snake rescuer and reptile educator from South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal region. He saw the snakes when he went to a property in the Durban suburb of Reservoir Hills.
He said in a Facebook post that he had heard that two black mamba snakes had been seen there earlier in the day.
The black mamba is a dangerous snake from Africa that is known for its size, speed, and poison. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, adults can grow to be more than four meters (14 feet) long.
Evans usually goes to calls to catch black mambas, so he was upset that he hadn't been able to help one in about 10 days.
Evans started looking for the snakes as soon as he met some coworkers at the property. He was going to climb under the property to check it out, but one of his coworkers saw one of the snakes and stopped him from doing that. He ran to get some tongs.
"When I got back, the mamba was curled up, so it was easy to get it. I gently pulled it up, and Craig used his tongs to hold it in place while I changed tongs and pinned it down "Evans said this on Facebook.
As the team was putting the snake in a box, they saw another snake on a branch just a few feet away. Evans wrote, "I had to lean over and stretch a bit, but I got it and did the same thing."
Evans thought at first that the two snakes were a couple, but he later learned that they were both males. "The one I caught there most recently was on May 4. Maybe her scent is still there, which is what brought these two people there "He put words on paper. "If not, there might be a new woman in town!"
Black mambas mate in the spring and summer, and males will fight over females during this time.
The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) says that black mambas are "shy but aggressive" snakes that can strike more than once. Their venom is very poisonous and hurts both the heart and the nervous system.
When someone gets bitten, they may swell, lose control of their tongue and jaw, slur their speech, have blurry vision, feel sleepy, become paralyzed, or become confused. Kruger National Park in South Africa says that a bite can also kill within a few hours.
If nothing is done, every single person will die.
The park also says that a bite needs to be treated as soon as possible by a doctor.
SANBI said that black mambas are "nervous animals" that tend to stay away from people. However, habitat loss and more people moving into their normal areas can cause problems.
People who see them are told by the institute to "back away slowly and call a professional snake handler to get rid of it if it's inside a building."
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source: https://www.newsweek.com/two-black-mamba-snake-venomous-found-south-africa-1707744
