Durban – ‘The Snake Man,” Jason Arnold, recently “evicted” a male black mamba that was hidden in a shop’s ceiling in the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) North Coast.
Arnold responded to a call from the shop owner, who complained about a snake living in the roof of his shop. After an initial attempt to find the snake, Arnold was unsuccessful. However, a couple of days later, the shop owner called him to confirm that he had seen the snake.
“This Durban shop owner had had enough of the Black Mamba showing up and chasing his customers away. So I was called in to do the eviction,” he said.
On the second attempt, Arnold saw the head of the snake sticking out of the ceiling, went to fetch his ladder, and captured the Black Mamba successfully.
He established that this particular Black Mamba was a young boy, probably under the age of 3 years old.
“The male snakes have two organs (inverted tube-shaped hemipenes) so that, depending on which side of the female he’s sitting, he can either use the one or the other,” Arnold said.
After further examinations, he placed the snake into a bag and released it into a remote spot.
“It turned out a lot easier than what it could’ve. That snake could have shot out into those trees and then I would’ve had one heck of a mission trying to get it,” he said.
“What it could also have done is when I was up the ladder and I grabbed the tail just to secure it so that it couldn’t shoot into the trees, it could’ve just turned around and given me a really really hard time whilst I was balancing on the ladder and obviously my hand would’ve been holding the tail; the other hand I was holding the tongs. So that could’ve been a little bit dicey, but it all turned out well,” he added.
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Picture: Youtube/ JASON ARNOLD – SNAKE HANDLER
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Compiled by Junaid Benjamin
