Fun little story about snakes, on the topic of Mambas I figured I'd throw in since I have a bit of spare time to entertain y'all folks...
I go to Africa, a bit of an amateur herpetologist from Australia, and am on a walk with a guide through a forest when all these tourists start screaming and hollering. I walk over and start laughing my ass off- these idiots are screaming at seeing a tree snake, a little green tree snake sitting there, looking adorable, totally unfussed by the tourists. I stalk up, having handled a tiger snake with my hands before, killed a good couple dozen snakes with a shovel in my time when I've had to (you have a pet dog and a protected species snakey, sadly the snakey is gotta go for your pup's sake) and gotten pretty used to handling less aggressive ones. Sure, they'll nip you if you handle them wrong, but most will give you plenty of warning if they're not in the mood to be handled.
This little beaut, though? She just slithers off the branch as I hold my hand out, these Japanese tourists gasping like I'm some kind of wizard as I just let her glide onto the back of my hand and help her out with my fingertips lightly supporting her belly. Really friendly, probably the nicest wild snake I've ever handled- I was really hot from the hike so far, so I was probably the warmest place in the damn forest! Anyway, I start to explain that what we have here is actually called a green tree snake, and that you can tell when a snake isn't venomous- they don't have slit eyes, the diamond head shape or dangerous colours. If they lack all three of these, you've got yourself a friendly snake!
"Heyyyyy Rafiki, dass notta green tree snake."
"...huh?" I just look at the guide, who is making 'stay calm' gestures at me.
"Dassa green mamba white boy. She bite you? You're a dead white boy. You put her down real slow like, yeah?"
Oh. My. Jesus.
I've never heard that mambas come in green before, but the word 'mamba' is enough to make me look at this big ass snake with a whole new scope of 'oh fuck that' and it looks back at me like HERRO, and starts slithering under the sleeve of my shirt. Nope. Start to try pull it away, at which point it gets a little unhappy, hissing and flicking it's tongue a lot. So I have to, tactful as possible, unwrap this nightmarishly fatal creature that, if I get bitten by it, I'm too far from a hospital to survive most likely. Gently unwrap a snake very determined to stay wrapped around my arm, finally coax it onto a branch, then jump back and let out a fucking yell from how raked to the bone my nerves are by this stage. I swear in a way that only an Australian can.
"Heyyyy Rafiki, you get back on the path, yeah? Cuz there's a black mamba in the grass there and she don't look happy with you either."
