How to Get Bitten by a Black Mamba
Plan carefully and keep your camera close at hand.
by Richard Conniff12–15 minutes
A black mamba sinks its fangs into the photographer. (Photo: Mark Laita)With apologies to readers who have already seen this piece on my substack, I want to reprint it here because the original account appeared on Strange Behaviors 12 years ago, and left behind a frustrating mystery. Here the mystery gets belatedly solved. [And a note to readers: I generally stopped posting here because substack is more writer- and reader-friendly and draws a larger readership. If you haven’t yet, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber to Richard Conniff’s Substack.]
For anyone working in natural areas across sub-Saharan Africa, mambas are one of those deep, abiding terrors you try not to think about and hope never to encounter in the flesh. They come in four species, all typically slender and six or seven feet long—though 15 feet is said to be possible for the black mamba, which, despite the name, is typically light gray or brown. (It’s black only on the insides of the mouth.) The other three species are mostly green, but no less deadly.
Despite their reputation, mambas aren’t particularly aggressive. They’d rather slip away if they sense danger, down a crack in the rocks or into a treehole. But they are also extraordinarily fast and highly venomous. Their bites—often multiple bites in quick succession—are almost always fatal, in the absence of prompt antivenom treatment.
Oh, and there’s one other thing: The green ones tend to be arboreal, working their way along the branches of trees and shrubs in search of birds, small mammals, and other prey. Crashing through the bush in an open vehicle on various stories, I have tried not to contemplate the possibility that one could come flying in my window at any moment.
It’s much worse for a friend whose research involves studying caterpillars by routinely beating bushes and collecting what falls out into a sheet on the ground. The possibility of bringing his beater down anywhere near a mamba, he says, “adds a different dimension to going out collecting bugs.”
Just to demonstrate how fast and brutal a mamba bite can be, check out this horrific scene from the 2004 film “Kill Bill: Vol. 2.” You may remember it. It may even be on re-run in your nightmares.
That’s Daryl Hannah as a member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. Michael Madsen plays her victim. To gratify director Quentin Tarantino’s passion for authenticity, the snake that takes him out is a real, live black mamba.
We’ll get back to “Kill Bill” in a bit. But first let’s talk about the photo at the top of the page. It’s a black mamba sinking its fangs into the left shin of Los Angeles advertising photographer Mark Laita. Imagine being able to get that photo and in focus, as Laita did, at a moment like that. It’s astonishing, in so many ways.
