VIDEO: 2 large black mambas fight over a female snake
A family from Queensburgh, southwest of Durban, was treated to the most spectacular snake sightings of two male black mambas fighting on Friday last week.
Durban snake rescuer and conservationist Nick Evans said a resident just happened to look out his bedroom window when he saw two large black mambas intertwined.
These were two males wrestling over a female. This is typical behaviour of this time of year, as winter is the mating season.
Evans said the residents called another local snake rescuer, Duncan Slabbert, who rushed over.
Evans said the mambas fought for the 15 minutes or so that it took Slabbert to get there.
“Duncan was then incredibly fortunate enough to watch them continue wrestling for another 15-20 minutes.
‘I’ve been lucky to witness male combat in mambas a few times, but never for more than a few seconds,” said Evans.
He said male mambas do not bite each other, but they wrestle until one surrenders.
“In this case, Duncan explained how the slightly larger specimen would pull the smaller one back ever so slightly, with the bodies wrapped up as you can see below.
“The larger mamba would then try and pin the smaller mamba’s neck down on the ground, holding it there for a second or two. Duncan witnessed this behaviour about three times, before the smaller one surrendered, and started to move off.”
Evans said the residents were not too happy to have the mambas in the garden, so Slabbert skilfully caught them both.
“Fortunately, the mambas are exhausted after the battle, and so even though one tries escaping while the other is being caught, a snake-catcher can catch up to the second. I’ve been successful like that in the past, but not always, it depends on the setting,” he said.
Evans said he later met up with Slabbert to measure and weigh the mambas.
The larger one was just over 2.6 metres, and the other was just over 2.5 metres, with the larger one being nearly 300 grams heavier.
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