Thankfully some of my villagers had already killed this earlier that morning when I came across it. I was still scared though.
A large arboreal, diurnal elapid with a bright green body and a yellow tail with black edges around the tail scales.
Shot by the people I was with, who didn't care for mambas.
Opened mouth, showing black inside that got the snake its name.
Location approximate.
Mambas, of the genus Dendroaspis, are fast-moving land-dwelling snakes of Africa. ("Dendroaspis" is literally "tree snake".) They belong to the family of Elapidae which includes cobras, coral snakes, kraits and, debatably, sea snakes although these are now classed as Hydrophiidae, all of which can be extremely deadly. The black mamba (D. polylepis) is the longest venomous snake in Africa, with an extremely potent neurotoxic venom that attacks the nervous system, and cardiotoxins which attack the heart;...
