Mambas, Venom and the Evidence: teacher key

Black Mambas, grade 12 edition, written for 12th grade and up. The black mamba up close: where it lives, its size and colours, its names, family and family tree, its reported speed and movement, its senses, its day, its food, how its venom compares with its relatives, what dendrotoxins and mambalgins are, its conservation status and how it breeds.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. What did the 2025 study say about where black mambas live?
   • In open country as two separate populations (answer)
   • Only in forests
   • Only on one island
2. What did the 2025 study place as the sister of the black mamba?
   • The king cobra
   • The eastern green mamba (answer)
   • A monitor lizard
3. What suggested the black mamba's and eastern green mamba's populations were once connected?
   • The colour of their mouths
   • A zoo record
   • Species distribution models in the 2025 study (answer)
4. What dominated black mamba venom in the 2018 study, unlike most elapid venoms?
   • Dendrotoxins (answer)
   • Three-finger toxins
   • Phospholipase A2s
5. Which channels does toxin K from the black mamba mainly block?
   • Eye channels
   • Kv1.1 channels (answer)
   • Ear channels
6. What does proteome mean in: the venom proteome of black mambas?
   • A snake's range
   • A kind of egg
   • The full set of proteins (answer)

Words

• undulation: wavy movement
• vomeronasal: smell organ
• Elapidae: snake family
• neurotoxic: harming nerves
• proteome: all proteins
• mambalgins: painkilling proteins