Mamba

The mamba (kind Dendroaspis ) is a kind of Serpent S of the family of the Elapidae distributed in most of the Africa, except the arid zones.

The individuals are, if not with manners quasi exclusively arboricolous, like the species known as green ( Dendroaspis jamesoni, Dendroaspis angusticeps, Dendroaspis viridis ), at least very nimble in the trees as regards the Espèce known as black ( Dendroaspis polylepis ). Their agility and the toxicity of their Venom composed of dendrotoxine S, (neurotoxines presynaptic) was worth to them a reputation of killer, partly amplified by the territorial behavior of the black mamba which tends less to flee, as do it the majority of the other snakes, in front of an attacker.

Behavior

It is an animal Diurne which appreciates the wooded areas or rock for the black Mamba and the forests and savannas raised for the green Mamba and drives out actively. Its favorite preys are birds and rodents. When it found a prey, it delivers only one bite to him and is folded up, leaving time to the neurotoxine of sound Venin to paralyze it.

Venom

The first Symptome of a bite is a local pain in the zone of the bite, however less painful than that of the snakes having a venom charged with hémotoxine S or myotoxine S. Then the victim feels swarmings at the ends, blinks eyes, its vision narrows, it is put at to perspire and to salivate in an excessive way, then loses the control of its muscles (initially the mouth and the language). If the victim does not receive a suitable care (antivenin + symptomatic treatment) the blocking of the nerve impulse causes a progressive paralysis of all the striated muscles (including/understanding, inter alia the Diaphragme ensuring the Respiration), letting function only the smooth muscles as well as the Cœur, which have an autonomous operation.

It is interesting to note that the absence of hémotoxines and proteolytic enzymes so called myotoxines reduces considerably the usual antagonistic effects of the clinical picture with which the medical personnel charged is confronted to look after a victim of envenimation. The symptomatic treatment will be thus simpler and reduced as for the problems of coagulation, and the cure will be done without serious after-effects, provided that a sufficient oxygenation were installation.

Although with a treatment by Immunothérapie (or Antivenin) it is possible to cure in a few hours a bite of mamba, the paralysis caused by venom is not permanent and it is in theory possible to treat a bite of mamba by artificial ventilation and glucosée perfusion. For this reason, it should not be planned to stop the respiratory assistance to a victim of bite of mamba, even after a long period, toxins of Dendroaspis polylepis which can spend more than one month to disappear from blood of the victim.

According to J-P. Chippaux () " The atropine appeared very effective in experiments against the venom of mamba (Lee and Al, 1982). "

List species of this kind

See too

External bonds

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