Posted on 05/17/2004 12:18:50 PM PDT by 11th Earl of Mar
God looks after little kids, drunks and idiots. I have been a member of all three. It's about time I did a little watching myself. Mambas made me think about that. Luck and carefulness don't last a lifetime.
...Thanks for the post. Some thoughts about multiple bites. Why would the mamba bite so many? Not for food, but, biting victims as they came to find other victims. Instead of the death penalty, Life in prizoo. Who was his attorney???
You can always tell the creatures that even the crazy pros like Irwin, O'Shea and the others fear viscerally ... they start sweating and their patter becomes stilted and unfocused. With snakes, that always happens when they come accross the mambas, King Cobras, Austrailian brown/fierce snakes and big rock pythons. They're the mankillers.
My pal told me that it is customary for the locals to get a shotgun and just blow away the mambas whenever they are encountered. Nobody wants to mess with them, even though they are generally shy creatures and hustle into hiding at the approach of humans. Puff adders kill more humans, because they are like rattlers without the rattle ... they rely on camoflauge, sit on the ground, and people step on them and get tagged. But its the mambas the locals fear in a primal way.
I still like to watch him though. Although reptiles aren't my favorites, I do love creatures and I am compelled by anyone who loves his work as much as he does. His enthusiasm is infectious.
I do think that he showboats a bit-- and he has had a couple of really close scrapes. I'd hate to see him take a bad hit.
I've noticed that. You can tell when their on the edge.
Tell me something. Why are you still alive? ROTFLMAO...
God must want me to live to give DEMOCRATS and Muslims hell......
'their' should read 'they're'. I know better than that. Mea culpa.
Curiosity....would mambas survive here in the states? and where?
But, like I said, the locals prefer to blast away. My buddy told me that some local villagers chased a mamba into a tree and basically unloaded multiple shotgun rounds into the branches to kill the critter. They knocked down all the branches, but didn't get the snake. They cowered in fear for days because they thought the snake was going to come after them for revenge. That's the mystique of that particular animal to the residents of the South of Africa.
I've lost touch with my friend (he's one of those "visiting" professor types who is always on the move) but he spent a couple years down in the jungles of Honduras, Panama and Costa Rica in the early 90s and never came across a Bushmaster and only a few Fer-de-lance specimens. Sounds like their evolving habitat is in pretty bad shape.
...Kids get the first pass. I hope they will avoid the drunk, idiot phase. Yea, as of late, I'm just an idiot. But, I've been enrolled at idiots anon, FR, and I post rational and sober...
...Too bad, the mystique, ignorance of these animals, over ride the facts...
Water moccassins are actually very docile creatures.
True ....the Boomslang is a truly dangerous species. And when it comes to venom toxicity most herpetologists say the Fierce Snake takes the prize for land snakes, but there are quite a few contrarians who pick the Boomslang as numero uno.
This snake really has a lot of interesting history. For decades Western scientists and herpetologists claimed that the Boomslang was harmless. That it is simply a back-fanged snake (meaning its fangs are at the back of its mouth instead of the front) with a very mild and ineffectice venom. And totally harmless. However, the natives who had lived around the Boomslang for centuries would tell them tales of how the Boomslang is lethal, and how its venom potency has an amazing degree of efficacy. But they were ignored ....after all, what did these natives know (same thing happened with the Mountain gorilla by the way).
Anyways, in the early part of the 20th century, a famous herpetologist (the most famous at the time) called Iodides (sp) was handling a Boomslang, when it bit him. Not chewed on him ....because most back-fanged snakes have to chew to get their rear fangs into place ....but struck and bit him. You see, the Boomslang may have back-placed fangs, but its mouth is very small and those fangs are quite long and forward-facing. And it can gape its mouth quite wide. Thus, it does not need to chew but just strike like any front-fanged snake. But Iodides was not worried ....after all the venom was mild.
Wrong! His eyes turned red, he started to urinate blood, his tongue swelled, and he died a horrible death quite fast (he did have the presence of mind to write in his journal all the nasty things the venom was doing to his system).
I personally had an experience with a Boomslang when I was back 'home.' It was in our home's courtyard, just basking in the sun on one of the live fences. One of the most beautiful snakes I've ever seen, and I've seen some very beautiful irridiscent species. The Boomslang was amazing. And we just sat there looking at each other ....my 6 foot frame versus his 7 foot frame ....and after a while we went our seperate ways. They are venomous like heck ....but they mind their own business.
On the rest of the story: It is interesting that the box contained a Vine snake, a cobra, and green and black mambas. Why would someone leave such a box by itself. Whoever did that should be imprisoned since any of those snakes can easily kill a family, especially the black Mamba.
I wish someone would tell me why trade in such serpents is allowed in the US to anyone. Why not at least make someone apply for a permit? (Although for the Mambas not even a permit should be, ahem, permitted.) Online sites like Dragon Farms offer Mambas, Taipans and Kraits for sale, to anyone with a credit card. And yet each of these snakes, especially the Mambas and Taipans, do not do well in captivity, and are really really really really really really really hard to feed! Not because they refuse to eat, but because to feed them you must open the serpentarium to put the food in, and you would be amazed how fast an 11 foot Black Mamba can get out of a cage ....so fast you'd say it was sorcery ....and being stuck in a room with a Mamba (that has probably raised itself from the ground higher than your face is) quickly teaches someone respect.
If veteran herpetologists have some trepidation when it comes to feeding or milking mambas for venom, how is some pimply-faced hairy-palmed kid for Jersey supposed to take care of them? And the sad thing is in an emergency (after the kid and his family are killed), the cops will eventually come to the house and get bitten to (killing a Mamba when you are not expecting one is a herculean task), or it may escape into the neighborhood.
Wasn't a fireman killed last year by a Gaboon viper when he went into an apartment and it bit him, and they couldn't find antivenin for it! People should stick to Rattlesnakes and Cottonmouths. For one they are local and thus antivenin is within easy reach. Secondly, although they are very venomous they are nowhere near African, Indian and Australian exotics (one toxicology report stated Mamba venom being 65 t0 70 times more lethal to humans that Diamondback Rattlesnake venom, with the Fierce Snake topping 80 times). In the US I'd stick with Rattlers .....less danger.
I'm not really into reptiles-- I rather like my fellow mammals. I cut them a piece of slack whenever I can.
Story is correct, but you got tha name wrong.
Famous herpetologist Karl P. Schmidt died 28 hours after a Boomslang bite. The day after the bite, he called in to say he felt well and would be in to work...2 hours before he literally dropped dead from the bite.
Thanks for that overview. Let's face it, in most of the USA they probably only have antivenin for Diamondback Rattler bites. In the South and Southwest they may have antitodes for the venom of the other North American Vipers and the Coral. NOBODY is prepared for a bite from a Gaboon Viper, Boomslang, Australian Tiger or Mamba some knucklehead imported from a international animal broker. It's almost a certain death.
AnimalPlanet has a recurring show about a ER physician in Arizona who specializes in venomous trauma. You see how difficult it is for science to keep up with the evolving venom chemistry of the snakes native to North America.
Whoever left those snakes on the side of the road should be located and arrested as a terrorist. It's fortunate no-one was killed. If three kids happened upon the box and opened it, those snakes could explode from the crate and fatally tag them in a nanosecond.
LOL!
Yep ...it was Schmidt and not Iodides who was tagged by the Boomslang. Grazie.
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