Originally published at: Bobcat versus rattlesnake caught on video | Boing Boing
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That was exciting, adorable, and metal all at the same time. Bravo kitty!
I was once hiking a bluff, and near the very edge of the cliff I had worked my way out to, I was surrounded by 3 or 4 rattlesnakes feet from my foot. I walked very very slowly back over maybe 40 minutes what took 2 to walk, and got the hell out of there.
To this day I will not go back to that spot without a large knife and walking stick and full boots and jeans.
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Dirt bath then dinner, I do that too.
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When I lived in Colorado there was a draw about 1/4 mile from the house and the neighbors told us that they frequently saw rattlesnakes crossing the road there. When we moved in our barn cat came with us, and nobody saw any more rattlers in the draw. However, when I went out to feed the critters one evening I found that the cat had brought home a dead snake that looked like it had lost a match with a rotary mower. This was a cat that weighed in at about 3 pounds. She also bagged a jack rabbit that was noticeably larger than her. Between her and our Siberian Husky we had zero varmint problems.
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We have a German Shorthaired Pointer, Whiskey is her name, that girl don’t stand for critters in my Dear Wife’s ample garden, none. She downs a tree rat, and then takes to a gofer, before breakfast, and I haven’t seen a rabbit on the land in a year. For a city born dog, she doing real good in the country.
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interesting watching the snake “deflate” once the cat got the bite on his head…
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I’d make a ‘Cat Scratch Fever’ joke, but unfuck Ted Nugent.
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I know people like cats, but I was rooting for the rattler.
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I’m with you, RobJ. I like cats too, but bobcats are a dime a dozen (pardon my monetizing), while timber rattlesnakes are threatened here in Kansas, mostly by suburban development, but also by the attitudes shared by most Boingers on this thread. We seem to be agreeing with Frauenfelder that a bobcat getting its prey makes for a pretty cool clip. What chafes me is the “snakes evil / kitty nice” view that sanctions our extermination of species that aren’t cute. Meanwhile, we admire our domestic cats when they show their predator instincts in the house by doing a little rodent control. And when we let them have a nice day outdoors in Spring, they get to kill lots of songbirds and other critters that we don’t see much anymore.
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YouTube is so full of cat vs. snake fights now that I can’t find my favorites from 5-10 years ago.
Most of them now have giant cobras photoshopped into the thumbnail too or “blood” all over the cat and snake.
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Were all those noises coming from the cat and snake? Was there an excitable bird watching?
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Yes, here in Oz domestic and domestic gone feral cats are a massive threat to indigenous wildlife… feral dogs not so much so forget about Pistol and Boo.
On my property we have brown snakes and tiger snakes (very deadly) and it is illegal to kill them… it is not illegal to feed kookaburras so having them around seems to sort out that problem in an eco friendly way. My big problem with the praise of the domestic kiiteh killing the snake monsters is that they also kill many small marsupials and indigenous birds.
Yep everything can kill you here but not many people are actually killed due to common sense. On the other hand the local fauna is having an issue with survival.
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I’m pretty sure that’s the cat. My flatmate’s cat makes similar noises when she sees a bird somewhere where she can’t get to it. (eg a seagull perched on a streetlight)
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Yeah what was with that? Looked very much like celebratory behaviour, like I wash my fur in the blood of your champions, O People Who Crawl!
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Kitty knows how to do it.
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That was just a skinny teenager. It needed that snake dinner.
I wonder how they know to leave the head alone after it’s dead?
The easiest way to determine bobcat vs lynx is the black tail tip. Lynx have the black all the way around and bobcats only have it on the top with a white underside. So this is a bobcat.
Rolling in the dust is probably to help neutralize any venom on the fur, since they lick their fur to groom.
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I’m always surprised at how closely small wildcats’ behavior is to that of my pet cats’.
Because your cat, left to its own devices, is still a murder machine.
Dogs too.
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-rolling in that scent, other animals gonna think that cat’s a badass
I walk 47 miles of barbed wire
I use a cobra snake for a necktie
I got a brand new house on the roadside
Made from rattlesnake hide
I’m more afraid of wild cats and dismayed by domestic cats predation of billions of wild birds, snakes, small furry animals grooving together in a cave with a pict
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You’re >this close< to a nice country tune, there 
I have a friend whose dog does the same thing, for the same reason (protecting backyard garden) When she kills a rabbit she’ll leave it on the back porch for disposal. Once he showed me a picture of two of them nicely lined up
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