🐍
Black mamba
Dendroaspis polylepis
Reptiles · Least concern
vs
🦁
Lion
Panthera leo
Carnivores · Vulnerable
One clip names both of them
887 views between them.
Lion outweighs Black mamba 4.8× — 149 kg against 30.8 kg. Both figures are averages across males and females.
Tale of the tape
Body mass
31 kg
🐍 Black mamba · AnAge
149 kg
🦁 Lion · COMBINE
Shoulder height
no figure yet
🐍 Black mamba
1.15 m
🦁 Lion
Body length
4.25 m
🐍 Black mamba · ReptTraits
2.17 m
🦁 Lion · COMBINE
Top speed
no figure yet
🐍 Black mamba
55 km/h
🦁 Lion
Bite force
no figure yet
🐍 Black mamba
1,768 N
🦁 Lion
Maximum lifespan
26 yr
🐍 Black mamba · AnAge
30 yr
🦁 Lion · COMBINE
Bars are sized against the larger of the two figures. Bite force figures come from individual studies and vary a lot between sources.
Animals caught on camera
Real footage of the animals on this site — hunting, fighting, and getting on with it.
Shared ancestry
The closest group they share is Tetrapoda (superclass), home to 51,389 species.
We know what their shared ancestor was, but not when it lived — no dated family tree spans both of them yet.