Watch Bobcat vs. Rattlesnake: Wildcat Fights Diamondback on Arizona Sidewalk
A bobcat and a rattlesnake had a brawl on an Arizona sidewalk, stunning onlookers as the wildlife fight tumbled into human territory.
Laura Lucky captured a video of the incident in Scottsdale, Arizona, according to KSAZ. The real estate agent was working when she saw a diamondback rattlesnake bite the bobcat. That’s when she started to record.
“The rattlesnake had come up and bit the bobcat on the lip,” she told the station. “The cat flew. It was very surreal.”
The video clip starts with the bobcat biting at the rattlesnake at the edge of the sidewalk and then picking it up with its mouth. The snake continues moving and the bobcat loses its grip, then starts to go after the slithering snake with its paws. The snake gets a couple of hits in, but the bobcat keeps coming.
After a lot of slashing at the snake with its paws, and stepping on it, the bobcat finally gets the rattlesnake securely into its mouth and rushes off with its prize.
Lucky, and the California couple she was taking to tour a local home, were safe inside a car at the time.
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Western diamondback rattlesnakes are the venomous creatures for which Arizona’s baseball team gets its name. Their heavy bodies are covered in a diamond pattern, and they have triangular heads.
In the video clip, the black-and-white stripes of the snake’s signature tail, lying next to the rattle, whip around as it tries to fend off the bobcat.
These rattlesnakes are pit vipers, meaning they have pits in their heads that detect heat and help them seek out prey. They can be found throughout the Southwest: In addition to Arizona, they are in New Mexico, California, Texas and Oklahoma, and parts of northern Mexico.
Western diamondback rattlesnakes feed on rodents, lizards, birds and other small animals.
In American rattlesnake territory, this species is only outdone by its larger cousin, the eastern diamondback rattlesnake.
The bobcat, meanwhile, can be identified by the spotting in its short fur, which tends to be reddish in the summer and gray in the winter. Bobcats, also known as wildcats, eat things like rabbits, birds and squirrels. The nocturnal animals are found in most American states as well as parts of Canada and Mexico.
