The gut mongoose’s unique game of taking snakes to swing and fly from grassland to grassland
In Sᴏᴜᴛʜ Aғʀɪᴄᴀ’s Kruger National Park, an encounter between a ᴘᴏɪsᴏɴᴏᴜs snake and a fierce furball recently ended up appearing like a toddler playing on a rope swing – all while visitor Delia Bronkhorst had her video rolling!
In the fortunate photograph taken by Bronkhorst, the mongoose is shown flying from the ɢʀᴀss to Bɪᴛᴇ tightly into the hanging head of a ᴅᴇᴀᴅ snake before bouncing around like a bungee jumper. The snake ultimately manages to drop free after many consecutive Bɪᴛᴇs that each further mutilate the poor reptile’s head. The predator and prey then vanish into the ɢʀᴀss, perhaps for a well-earned feast.
Eight different kinds of mongooses live in the Kruger National Park. While many of them primarily eat insects, others are content to ʜᴜɴᴛ down fruits and larger animals like snakes. It’s unclear in this instance whether the mongoose ᴋɪʟʟed the snake or simply found one that had already ᴘᴀssᴇᴅ ᴀᴡᴀʏ.
The animal is a Selous’ mongoose, the rarest in Kruger, according to National Geographic scientist Kathleen Alexander, and the reptile is a black mamba, one of Africa’s ᴅᴇᴀᴅliest ᴠᴇɴᴏᴍᴏᴜs snakes. The fact that mongooses have a handy tolerance to the snakes’ otherwise lethal Bɪᴛᴇs makes them rather famous for ʜᴜɴᴛing them, and this is not the first time we have witnessed a mongoose-mamba confrontation. The tenacious tiny animals have also been observed sparring with lions and leopards.
