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mambas
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by chevvy on August 10, 2005
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In his book mamabas and man eaters CPJ Ionides talks about 4 kinds of mambas, Green, black, and two less venomous blue, and coral is this fact? I have never seen pictures.
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RE: mambas
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by KingCobraFan on August 10, 2005
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Are you sure he wasn't referring to two completely different species of snake with the blue and coral? I know of four species of mamba: Dendroaspis polylepis (black), Dendroaspis angusticeps (Eastern green), Dendroaspis viridis (Western green), and Dendroaspis jamesoni (Jameson's mamba). You may see that last one listed with kaimosae on the end of it. Hope it helps.
Bill Huseth
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RE: mambas
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by Chance on August 10, 2005
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There are four main species of mambas, but (unfortunately) none of them are exactly blue. The species are Dendroaspis polylepis (black mamba), D. angusticeps (East African green), D. viridis (West African green), and D. jamesoni (Jameson's mamba). Jameson's consists of two valid subspecies, D. jamesoni jamesoni, and D. j. kaimosea (sp?). I'm not sure exactly what the distinguishing features are between the two Jameson's subspecies, but someone will probably post them shortly. I believe people are working to split polylepis into at least two different subspecies, though I certainly don't know for sure. Hope this helps clear up some things.
-Chance
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RE: mambas
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by Cro on August 10, 2005
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Chevy: You seem to have misread parts of C.J.P. Ionides book ``Mambas and Man-Eaters.``
He does mention orange and coral colored snakes, but he is talking about cobras, not mambas when he states this.
We have to remember that he was working in Africa between 1945 and 1965, so all the modern sub-specific designations of the mambas were not known to him.
He says on page 159 ``the three mambas I know, namely the black, the green and Jameson`s are all arboreal.`` He makes no distinction between the greens of East or West Africa.
Later in the book he says ``The green is a beautiful mamba with an iridescent green back and a distinctly yellowish-green belly. For coloring and grace second only to the Jameson`s which is a wonderful velvety blue with dark green interspersed with black on the anterior portions and a black tail.`` This would seem to explain the Blue Mamba you mentioned.
Hope this helps JohnZ
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RE: mambas
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by ReptileWild825 on August 12, 2005
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There are four species of mambas: the Black mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis), Eastern Green mamba (Dendroaspis angusticeps), Western Green mamba (Dendroaspis viridis), and Jameson's mamba (Dendroaspis jamesoni). Like Chance mentioned, the Jameson's mamba has two valid subspecies, (D.j. jamesoni, and D.j. kaimosea). The nominate subspecies has a yellow tail with black-edged scales, while D.j. kaimosea, (also known as the Black-tail mamba), has a black tail as the name suggests. The two subspecies also have several differences in scalation. Hope this helps, Bryan
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