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Lizards – Squamata Lizards are an artificial grouping of species that make up the order Squamata along with snakes. There are more than 4500 species of lizards in the world. Many lizards appear to be limited to their ranges by substrate type rather than climate. A lizard species can therefore be found either only on […]
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Last month I once again spent my Saturday morning at another fascinating lecture from Bushtalk. This time the speaker was Johan Marais and the topic was Snakes and Snakebites. This is quite a touchy topic as many people are afraid of snakes and don’t want anything to do with them. However if you do not […]
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Reptiles groups Snakes – Squamata There are more than 3000 snake species in the world. Snakes are elongate, limbless carnivores that consume large, infrequent meals. They have a wide gape and moveable skull bones to do this. Snakes teeth are specialized for piercing, injecting venom and holding onto prey, rather than cutting it into pieces. […]
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Biology and behavior No species of reptile migrates. This is because reptiles are adapted for sitting tight and waiting for conditions to change. As the environment becomes colder, reptile’s decrease in body temperature. This causes their metabolic rate to decrease, and reptiles therefore become inactive until the temperature increases again. They hibernate in the […]
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The long weekend provided us with an opportunity to get together to spend some time in nature. The two of us, our sisters, and some friends got together on the Thursday afternoon after school for what we hoped would be a few great days around Hartbeespoort Dam. Shortly after arriving we set off to find […]
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My mom, dad and I were watching television in our lounge one summer evening. Ruth was in her room reading while Tofi was catching some of the big moths that were common at this time of the year. The insects were bugging all of us. Summer in the African bush isn’t always that great with […]
My sister and I decided to take a walk one morning to see if we could find the wild dogs that had been seen on our farm recently. We set off very early with our Jack Russell, Tofi, and out pet warthog, named Pumba. A pack of four wild dogs had been seen in the mountains near our house a lot recently, so we thought that we would begin our search for them there.
We scrambled through some thorn thickets and then walked next to a dry riverbed for a while, always on the lookout for any activity. We managed to see a few mountain reedbuck and a herd of impala, but not the wild dog that we were looking for.
We continued on and spotted a small hill a distance away that was overlooking a waterhole. Seeing that our searching was fruitless, we decided to make our way to the hill to watch the waterhole for a while. I had been walking in front for most of the walk so Ruth decided that she wanted to set the pace for a while. She was complaining that I was walking too quickly, so I kindly allowed her to lead the way. She started walking and I followed right behind her.
We were nearly at the top of the hill and looking forward to having a rest, when Ruth suddenly screamed and then turned around and shot off down the hill. I looked back at her to see what was wrong, but she was already nearly at the bottom of the hill. Wanting to find out what was wrong, I turned back around. But what I saw was not a pretty sight. There was a huge black mamba standing in front of me.
I didn’t hesitate to watch it and immediately began chasing after Ruth. When I was about twenty meters away, I glanced back and saw that Tofi and Pumba were still standing at the black mamba. It was about five meters away from them, but the worst thing was that it was standing up with half of its body off the ground and with its black mouth wide open.
I screamed at our pets to come and they thankfully came running towards me. I also set off running and we all made our way down the hill to safety. When we got to the bottom we couldn’t find Ruth though. I started to worry and started calling out to her. She answered me immediately and I managed to find her on the road, about one hundred meters away.
We sat down for a while to gather our composure because we were both shaking. Seeing a black mamba up close and personal isn’t something that I will chose to do very often.
In all the confusion, Ruth had thrown my trusted walking stick at the snake. I tried to get her to go back with me to get it but she refused without even thinking about it. I also didn’t want to fetch it, so we decided to leave it and make our way home. Rather find a new walking stick than have another nerve-shattering encounter with a black mamba.
I did get to face a black mamba again, but this time it was on a game drive with my dad. We were taking some guests on an afternoon game drive and were on our way to have some sundowners on the top of the farm’s impressive mountain range. We always do it and it really end the day off perfectly.
I was sitting on the front of the land drover like usual, trying to spot the animals for the guests. But just before we got to the top of the mountain, I spotted something that I would rather not have.
I was scanning the bush for animals and was fortunate to glance back towards the road just in time. A huge black mamba was in the road and I immediately screamed at my dad to stop. He slammed on the breaks of the vehicle and sent me flying off the bonnet.
I was only in the air for a few seconds but I had a feeling that I was going to land on the mamba when I hit the ground. I thankfully missed it but landed with a hard thud on the ground, hurting my bottom a little in the process. And when I looked up all that I saw was this huge black mouth starring down at me. The black mamba was only a few meters away, standing up with its head raised. And it didn’t look like it was happy with me so close to it.
Even though my bum was a bit numb, I immediately shot up and jumped back on the vehicle, to a big sigh of relief from all of the guests. I was shaking like crazy but thankfully wasn’t hurt and more importantly, wasn’t bitten by the black mamba, because that probably would have meant death as the nearest hospital was 100km away.
We all sat back and nervously watched as the huge grey snake stared at us for a few more seconds before closing its mouth and slinking off into the long grass while showing us its charismatic smile of death. And it really could have meant death for me. We drove off when it was out of harms way and carried on to our destination. I was still shaking but it turned out that one of the female guests got an even bigger fright than me when she saw the snake near me.
I lived to tell the tale though and I can safely say that black mamba’s are the creature that I definitely fear the most, especially when the specimens that I encounter are normally around three meters in length!
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