'Man, That's One Brave Bobcat'

Everglades animal raided invasive python nest, ate eggs
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 16, 2022 3:08 PM CDT

Invasive Burmese pythons have been squeezing the life out of the Florida Everglades for decades—but researchers say one species of native mammal is learning to fight back. Video captured by United States Geological Survey cameras shows a bobcat repeatedly raiding an unguarded python nest to eat eggs and clashing with the python on at least one occasion, CBS News reports. The bobcat was observed "consuming, trampling, caching, and uncovering the eggs while the python is gone," the USGS said. The bobcat was seen swiping at the python when it at one point found the snake guarding its nest.

"This is the first documentation of any animal in Florida preying on python eggs, and the first evidence or description of such antagonistic interactions at a python nest," researchers wrote in a study published in the journal Ecology and Evolution. They estimate the bobcat weighed around 20 pounds and the snake weighed more than four times as much. Researchers say they found 42 "inviable or destroyed" eggs at the nesting site; their attempts to incubate another 22 "damaged but potentially viable" eggs in a lab were unsuccessful.

The snakes have taken a terrible toll on native wildlife in the region: A 2012 study found that opossum and raccoon populations in parts of the Everglades were down 99% from the 1990s, bobcat populations were down 88%, and there was no sign of native fox or rabbit species. Lead researcher Andrea Currylow tells National Geographic that the bobcat might not have survived if the python had been interested in eating. "But man, that’s one brave bobcat," she says. Currylow says the raid is a promising sign for Everglades wildlife, as it shows "the native species are learning, they’re adapting, they’re able to be more resilient to an invasive species." (More burmese python stories.)

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