Incredible moment possum fights furiously with python to protect her baby
A Queensland woman has captured the incredible moment a possum launched a ferocious attack on a carpet python attempting to steal her offspring.
After returning home from work, Christine Birch Williams made her way into the backyard to water her plants when she heard the commotion unfolding and a scene you would expect to be narrated by David Attenborough.
“I watched as a carpet python took the baby possum from mum back,” Ms Williams, who lives on the Sunshine Coast, told Yahoo7 News, adding the snake had been living in the courtyard for some time.
Ms Williams said she never for a second considered “intervening with nature”, instead fetching her camera and snapping the mother’s incredible fight to free her joey.
In one shot, the mother possum can be seen sinking her teeth into the snake as it attempts to constrict the baby.
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The snake eventually gave up the fight and slithered off into the garden, while remarkably both possums were uninjured.
“It happened quickly,” she said.
“The up side – the possums stopped eating my chilli.”
Snake catcher Stuart McKenzie said the defeated snake was left with a few bite marks for its troubles.
“The carpet python snatched the baby possum off the mum’s back and then as every mum would she attacked the snake to get her baby back,” Mr McKenzie wrote in a Facebook post that included the photos.
“The snake ended up letting go and baby possum was fine… He won’t mess with that possum again.”
