Durban - Local snake catcher Nick Evans detailed what he described as a “spectacular” sight when a resident from the Escombe area of Queensburgh in the greater Durban area captured two large black mambas intertwined in a wrestling match over a female on Friday.
Evans said the resident and his friend, Duncan Slabbert, were treated to “one of the most spectacular snake sightings one could possibly wish for”.
He said he was unfortunately unavailable after he was contacted by Slabbert, who rushed over to the property after receiving a call from the resident.
“The resident just happened to look out his bedroom window, when he saw these two large black mambas, intertwined.”
Evans said the two males were wrestling over a female, which is typical behaviour for this time of year as winter is the mating season.
“The mambas fought for the 15 minutes or so that it took Duncan to get there. Duncan was then incredibly fortunate to watch them continue wrestling for another 15-20 minutes.”
Evans said he has been lucky to witness male combat in mambas a few times, but never for more than a few seconds.
Male mambas don’t bite each other, he said, rather they wrestle till 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. The larger mamba would then try to pin the smaller mamba;s neck 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.”
According to Evans, the residents were not too happy to have the mambas in the garden.
“Duncan skilfully caught both. Fortunately mambas are exhausted after 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.”
Evans later met with Slabbert to measure and weigh the mambas.
“The larger one was just over 2.6m, the other was just over 2.5m, with the larger one being nearly 300g heavier.”
