Ajaguar’s brutal battle with a yellow anaconda has been captured by a wildlife photographer along a riverbank in South America.
Chris Brunskill was on a boat along the Cuiabá River in the western Brazil state of Mato Grosso when he witnessed the rare encounter.
The UK-based photographer said he was “very fortunate” to witness the “incredible” jaguar v snake encounter.“This is by far the rarest of rare events in the life of the jaguar and I know of several people who have spent twenty years or more on the river and not had the good fortune to see what I saw last week,” he recalled.
“On this day we had left the hotel late due to rain and only pulled off from the jetty just after 9:30am on a cold, cloudy day.
“Ten minutes up river we spotted a jaguar walking in the open along the top of the riverbank when something in a patch of long grass caught her attention. I was only half paying attention at this point when she flicked her paw into the grass and out came an anaconda!”
He explained the rivals fought for around 90 seconds in a battle to the death, with the “snake lunging at the jaguar several times” during the confrontation.