Frightening moment two feisty snakes fight for dominance in the Outback ahead of mating season

An ecologist has captured rare video of two wrestling snakes who were fighting in the Australian outback for over an hour.

Ecologist Tali Moyle took the amazing footage at the Scotia Wildlife Sanctuary in Scotia, New South Wales, a 90 minute drive south of Broken Hill. The video shot late last year shows the snakes rolling over each other to try and exert dominance.

Video: Two feisty snakes fight for dominance ahead of mating season

‘Mating season starts in early spring and the males start wrestling,’ Ms Moyle told the Australian Wildlife Conservancy. ‘[They are] attempting to push each other over to prove their dominance, for the right to mate with the females.’

The scientist said while Mulga Snakes are common, she had only come across snakes fighting like this twice.

‘We all jumped out the car with our cameras as quick as we could,’ Ms Moyle told Daily Mail Australia. ‘We watched them for at least an hour.’ ‘We had to wait for the them to get off the road to drive past, they didn’t even flinch when we drove really close next to them.’

Ms Moyle said when one snake wins the fight, the other will have to leave. ‘The winning male will have mating rights to females in that area,’ she said. Followers of the Australian Wildlife Conservancy Facebook page were surprised the snakes were fighters and not lovers.

‘Thank you for correcting my ideas. I’ve seen brown snakes “fighting” several times and thought they were mating. It’s pretty impressive to watch and a little scary,’ wrote one follower. ‘Might be a silly question but I’ll ask as I don’t know? Why aren’t they biting each other and if they did does [their] own venom kill each other?’ asked a confused commenter. ‘They are immune from venom from snakes within the same species,’ said Ms Moyle.

One viewer couldn’t help but draw parallels with the human species. ‘This happens at about 2-3 am outside the Dorset pub for the same reasons,’ they joked.

Source: dailymail