Taxonomy
The black mamba was first described in 1864 by Albert Günther, a German-born British zoologist, ichthyologist, and herpetologist. Soon after, a subspecies was identified, Dendroaspis polylepis antinorii (Peters, 1873), but this is no longer accepted as distinct. The genus and species name are derived from Ancient Greek words – Dendroaspis meaning "tree asp" (dendro is "tree", while aspis is "asp" which is understood to mean a "venomous snake") and polylepis, "many scaled", from poly "many" and lepis "scales". The name "black mamba" is given to the snake not because of its body colour but because of the ink-black colouration of the inside of its mouth, which it displays when threatened. In 1896, Boulenger combined the species (Dendroaspis polylepis) as a whole with the eastern green mamba, Dendroaspis angusticeps, and they were considered a single species from 1896 until 1946.
It is one of four species in the African snake genus Dendroaspis that are known as mambas.
Read more about this topic: Black Mamba