I keep a Green Mamba and a Papuan Taipan and neither are what you would expect from the 2 species. The mamba can be "tangly" in her branches at times and the Taipan can be aggressive at night(which I avoid)but both are handleable. Suprisingly the 2 I fear most in my collection are my female normal Monocle Cobra (due to speed and flightiness) and my male Sumatran Spitter due to shear aggression, not to mention all the while making direct eye contact with you and spraying your arms with venom. Like the guy posted before I had a male Forest Cobra who was about as tame as a cat, which have horrible reputations. I think unfortunately you cannot predict a species' behavior based on the attitude of one specimen, it just all depends on the luck(or unluck in some cases) of the draw. That being said I think most elapid keepers keep the snakes they keep simply out of love and admiration, not the machismo factor. Having a "bad apple" somehwere in the bunch though usually comes with the territory when keeping animals of such a dangerous nature.

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