Watch this 20-pound bobcat fight a 120-pound python. The cat wanted eggs for breakfast
In one corner, weighing in at about 20 pounds, a male bobcat from the Florida Everglades.
In the other corner, weighing in at about 120 pounds, a nesting Burmese python, considered invasive in the Florida Everglades.
The prize: the winner assumes possession of a nest of eggs.
Guess who had breakfast.
If you guessed the Mama python, which would have an advantage, guess again.
As wildlife researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey observed over four days via a trail camera during a research project at the Big Cypress National Preserve, the patient bobcat happens upon initially unguarded eggs — a veritable smorgasbord for the sleek fighter.
As you watch the video — condensed to just under five minutes — you can almost read the cat’s mind as it circles around the nest by day and by night: “Yum! Should I have these eggs scrambled, sunny side up or over easy?”
Apparently, the bobcat opted for scrambled as he’s seen “consuming, trampling, caching and uncovering the eggs” according to researchers.
That’s when the python is not there. But then the wily cat comes upon the coiled giant — and confronts the python.
The video shows an exchange of a couple blows between the Everglades predator and the Everglades intruder.
Watch as the bobcat swipes and bats at the Burmese beast with its paws. He dodges pretty good, too.
Then, a rat, or something that looks like a rat, comes upon the midnight buffet.
The research project at Big Cypress was from June to September 2021 and published in a study in the journal of Ecology and Evolution.
