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Close Encounter (16)
waylim
![Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Note Writer [C: 136 W: 2 N: 214]](http://i1.treknature.com/misc/g-n-g.gif) (727) | While staying at a campsite in Mto Wa Mbu, a town near Lake Manyara, I was waiting for my friend near the restroom shower area, when he walked in I look up and saw less than two feet behind him, there was a brilliant green snake on the fence around the restroom. First I thought someone left a rubber snake on the fence because it was not moving. Than it moved slightly, I realized that I was in Africa, this was the real thing. Horrified, I told him to be careful, which caused him to stop, I told him “Don’t stop, walk slowly toward me!” I whispered. He was scared, not snake person. Thank got there’s more than one opening, I told him to go out from the other way back to our tent to get our camera, and video camera. While he was gone, I was hopping that the snake wouldn’t get scared and go away. Instead another one came up from between the fence. I was scare and excited at the same time. My friend got back in time for me to take a few photos of it before the local women saw them and tried to kill them with a long wooden stick. The snake got away unharmed. It was a happy ending, except I couldn’t take a shower there that day.
See workshop for view of both snakes.
They told us those were green mamba, the second most poisonous snake, and black mamba is the most venomous.
Wikipedia: The Western green mamba (D. viridis) and Eastern green mamba, (D. angusticeps), possess venom that is roughly equal in potency to that of the Black mamba (D. polylepis). However, they are not nearly as aggressive. They are slightly smaller, and are arboreal, whereas the latter is primarily terrestrial.
Mambas, of the genus Dendroaspis, are fast-moving tree-dwelling snakes of Africa. ("Dendroaspis" is literally "tree snake".) They belong to the family of Elapidae which includes cobras, coral snakes, kraits and, debatably, sea snakes, all of which can be extremely deadly. The black mamba is the largest venomous snake in Africa, with an extremely potent neurotoxic venom that attacks the nervous system; the bite is often fatal to humans without access to proper first aid and subsequent antivenin treatment, because it shuts down the lungs and heart. Prior to the availability of antivenom, envenomations by members of this genus carried a nearly 100% fatality rate. However, with antivenom being much more available today, fatalities have become much more rare. |
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