I am just wondering how many people have actually had the privilege to set eyes on 3 mambas in one place.
My May 06 client is a retired man in his sixties. After his formal safari with me he decided he likes it down here and would stay on for another 6 weeks. I kept him busy by tagging him along whenever I was hunting myself or my friends were hunting – on our usual cheap-stuff trips of with huge effort and little results. You know, the kind of hunting where you would walk yourself into a coma and save money by not killing anything of value.
He was accompanied by a tracker and a PH friend of mine, when they came across what looked like 2 mambas wrestling about 15 yards away. Much like giraffes, they were displaying strength by trying to dominate the rival physically, but not biting each other. He says their bodies were entangled in upright position to about 3 feet high.
Next moment they observed the tail of a third mamba one step to their left with head a further 8 feet away! Presumably that was the female that caused the "fight"? Anybody out there more knowledgeable?
Of course the camera was in the truck. They hastily joined the camera.
Lochi.

It is entirely possible that what your friend observed was what you suggested, a male dominance "fight" for the female in the background. Here is a description of the procedure in another species of snake:

"The combat dance engaged in by two males is believed to be a competitive behaviour for the acquisition of females during the breeding season. As in the courtship dance, the front of the bodies entwine and are raised higher and higher off the ground until finally one snake overthrows the other." From Britanica

While not having been within spitting (shitting?) range of the exact incident Lochi describes, I was close enough. It was I who picked the two hunters up after their dance with death.

Having hunted the Limpopo Province for several decades, I must say that I have encountered more Mambas on this particular property than in all the rest of my hunting in the povince put together. They just seem to love the place! I neglected to tell Lochi's client this, but only a few weeks ago, a good friend of mine shot a juvenile black mamba off the boma wall, just a few feet from where said client was enjoying his dinners. I suppose that justifies my 12ga pump being propped up against the boma wall pretty much the whole time we were there?

.

Hey Lochi,
Why is it whenever hunters observe snakes, there never seems to be any pictures?

quote:

Why is it whenever hunters observe snakes, there never seems to be any pictures?

Because it is hard to take pictures while running!

Well, I know now where I WON'T be hunting!

I hate snakes....

I've only seen one mamba - fortunately he was dead in the road.

I've got some pretty cool photos of a puff adder (taken with zoom lense of course.)

Then there was this guy... don't remember what kind he was, but he and the lizard were in a fight for their lives when we found them.

I assume the snake eventually won.

Rikkie: Which Limpopo property are you talking about? Where are the mambas bad? Give all of us snake lovers or snake haters an idea.

quote:

Originally posted by BigBullet:
Hey Lochi,
Why is it whenever hunters observe snakes, there never seems to be any pictures?

Not always. Some jackasses actually stop and take pictures, and video.

My PH, me and my friend (an observer) are just such jackasses.

We almost stepped on one black mamba, and then managed to shoot it as it slithered into a brush pile. Skirting danger by circling around this brush pile we found another mamba in a termite mound. Like dummies (albeit very careful dummies), we took pics and some video of shooting the mamba in the hole.

Here's some pic's:







Cheers,
Canuck

video of a mamba that had been in a fight with a mongoose. Turn down the audio if you dont like profanity.

http://s68.photobucket.com/albums/i6/johnmac_photos/?ac...nt=mambavideompg.flv

Ran into two black mambas while running away from a irritated young elephant bull in the Zambezi valley once. We were way to close and as one entered his hole I had a shot but my PH suggested we leave quickly nad never return to this place. I suppose thats why he's the PH and Im not. My wife who was with us suggested that I was an idiot and this time she was right.

Use Enough Gun

The area I'm talking about is about 30-35 miles NE of Ellisras (Lately renamed to Lephalale). 15 miles from Botswana border, as the crow flies.

Alf,

As you know, the mambas should really be hibernating now, so it was a bit of a culture shock to run into this mob. I did have my little Jack Russell along, and keeping that little bugger out of fresh holes is quite a thing. Thank Heaven he only flushed francolin for us. And one very disgruntled dwarf mongoose.

I went hunting with buddies on a ranch 10 miles west from this one past weekend, stalked with my bow in tall grass for 3 days and saw no snakes.
(Cannot tell if any snakes saw me though )
Lochi

New Guy,
I can't tell clearly in your pic but that snake is one of the sand/grass/skaapsteker snake types, no doubt genus Psammophis or Psammophylax. I think it is a Yellow-belly, they are quite common. They are typically diurnal, fast moving snakes that eat , predominantly, repitles, mainly lizards and skinks, hence their dirurnal nature. They do take rodents too, I have conditioned a yellow-bellied sandsnake, like above, (P. subtaneatous) on to mice in captivity.

The largest of these is the Olive Grass snakes, which can easily be mistaken for a black mamba buy the unfamiliar eyes.
They have venom (rear fanged colubrids) but of no concern to humans.

Pity that mamba above had to be shot, living where it ought to be. I can understand shooting them close to habitation, but the bush is meant for more than just antelope and trophy big game, not so? if you don't like snakes, stay in cold climates......
Cheers

quote:

Pity that mamba above had to be shot, living where it ought to be. I can understand shooting them close to habitation, but the bush is meant for more than just antelope and trophy big game, not so? if you don't like snakes, stay in cold climates......

The PH was of the opinion at the time that the only good venomous snake is a dead venomous snake. He had been bit on the finger by a puff adder only one week before the incident with the mamba, and had almost died of anaphylactic shock due to an allergic reaction to the anti-venom. 5 shocks with a defibrillator were required to get his ticker going again.

While I was prepared to take a few pictures and get the hell out of Dodge, I completely understood his reaction to the mambas, especially since it is an area he hunts frequently.

FWIW,
Canuck

quote:

The PH was of the opinion at the time that the only good venomous snake is a dead venomous snake. He had been bit on the finger by a puff adder only one week before the incident with the mamba, and had almost died of anaphylactic shock due to an allergic reaction to the anti-venom. 5 shocks with a defibrillator were required to get his ticker going again.

While I was prepared to take a few pictures and get the hell out of Dodge, I completely understood his reaction to the mambas, especially since it is an area he hunts frequently.

FWIW,
Canuck

Hi Canuck, no offfesne to you at all....the PH obviously had bad memories of a traumtic experices (another reason to be very careful with antivenom)...but, most of us still drive cars even thought we know how deadly they are, everyday....
I am just a snake fan and hate to see them killed unecessarily. Buffalo are dangerous too....yet we don't see fit to kill each on we see!

As I said, no dig at you...I was just using your story as a launch pad, seems you had the right approach, to leave it after the pix

Cheers

I believe the toxin of mambais neurotoxic im rigth ,how much time do you have to inject the antitoxin ,here in Cordoba we only have yararas of local necrosis and anticoagulant action one of my father spaniel bretons was bitted but survived .Juan im a surgeon but i dont remember the action of mambas venoum.