Original Article: https://blog.theanimalrescuesite.greatergood.com/bobcat-python-fight/

Florida has a problem with invasive species, and pythons in particular.

The massive snakes can grow to 20 feet long or more. Female pythons can lay 50-100 eggs per year, and with no natural predators they have been free to multiply and take over large swathes of the Everglades, making short work of native mammals.

According to a study by the US Geological Survey, pythons were responsible for a 99.3% drop in the local raccoon population, while opossums dropped by 98.9%, and bobcats 87.5% since 1997. Marsh rabbits, cottontail rabbits, and foxes have all but vanished.

Until recently, Outdoor Life reports, wildlife biologists did not think the python was under any threat from native predators.

A study published in Ecology and Evolution has tossed the theory of the impervious python out on its ear. After mounting a trail camera in one section of the Everglades, researchers with the USGS recorded a bobcat fighting off a 120-pound female python that was guarding its nest.

The cat was photographed “repeatedly approaching the unguarded nest and consuming, trampling, caching, and uncovering the eggs,” over the following few days. At one point, the python struck out at the bobcat, which fought back with force.

Weeks later researchers found the python brooding the nest, having destroyed 42 of the python’s eggs. The trail camera recorded the bobcat returning to the nest to east the remaining eggs over the next few weeks.

As History reports, the Burmese python first became a scourge of the Everglades in the 1980s as a result of pet owners releasing the invasive Asian species into the wild.

The snakes have since exploded in numbers, with the latest estimates counting as many as 300,000 Burmese pythons in Florida.

See more in the video below.

Source: The Animal Rescue Site Blog