LISTEN: Massive Black Mamba captured in ceiling of Durban home

A nearly three-metre black mamba was found lurking in a Durban home’s ceiling.

Discovered in ceiling

Snake catcher Nick Evans was called out to a home in Kharwastan, Chatsworth, after the owners discovered the snake in their roof.

Evans says the house is a regular call-out for him, and over the years, he has only caught large mambas there, likely because the area has a healthy population of dassies, which are a food source for the snakes.

"I've only ever caught big mambas there. When I saw it initially on the roof, it looked fairly small, like two meters, which it sounds big, but for a black mamba, that's quite small. And only once I grabbed it and pulled it a bit closer could I see it was, it was a really big mamba."

Catcher captures Black Mamba safely

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He says once he shone his torch into the ceiling space, the snake realised it had been spotted - its tongue started flickering, sensing which way to go.

" Luckily, I have these really long snake tongs and I managed to reach out and grab it and pull it towards me. And with smaller snake tongs, I managed to grab it by the neck and by the head, and I had it secured, and then I climbed down. It's about 2.7 meters at least."

He adds that March is typically a busy month for snake activity, while black mambas also become more visible during their winter mating season.

Black Mamba sightings increase during winter

" Many snakes go a little quiet. Winter is mating season for mamba, so it's not like they're in homes every single day, but it's mating season, so you can see them. You can see males wrestling in the winter months from about late May, and then June, July."

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