Photographer Captures Black Mamba Biting Him on Camera

[Anatopism]

No excuse,.. he should have never been that close. If the handler was having issues then back away until they get situated. Cameras have zoom lenses for a reason. This could have easily been flipped and turned into something negative if he did end up in the hospital. Or worse actually died at home or some where and the pic found later.

Just seeing how touchy mambas can be and how quick they are, I'm guessing it wouldn't take much time to have gotten into that predicament. A zoom lens is not quite always possible to get the type of detail I'm sure he's looking for. I'll give you that he needs better assistants and somebody more familiar with handling hots working with him.. but he might have been in a safe place, and the snake handler was doing a poor job, resulting in a potentially disastrous situation.

Would make sense but it said on the article he didn't even notice until he looked at the pictures the next day... Pretty sure that you would be watching that thing closer then that and if there was a handler there then he must not care much for his clients hahaha

A lot of real-time things can be missed when looking through a lens or screen. Yeah.. I'd wan to be making extra sure to pay attention and be careful, but to get the kinds of shots he's aiming for, you've gotta pay attention snake via camera and hope to God the person positioning the snake doesn't let it do something like, oh.. bite your shin. Lol.

And well.. if he's handling the snakes himself, perhaps that's his first mistake.

I wonder what makes a venomous snake decide to bite, but not inject venom.

Are they just sort of exploring and trying to get a better feel for what catches their interest?

I've heard of sharks doing something like that, a test bite of some kind.

Even spiders can bite and "shut off" their venom so to speak, or opt not to use it. My guess would be that the snake had no reason to inject venom... maybe he was more annoyed than frightened, maybe it was a warning, maybe it's better to conserve the venom in case it's actually needed later?