In South Africa’s Kruger National Park, an encounter between a venomous snake and a ferocious furball ended up looking like a little boy playing on a rope swing – all while visitor Delia Bronkhorst was filming her video!

In the lucky photograph taken by Bronkhorst, the mongoose is seen flying from the abyss to the hanging head of a venomous snake before bouncing off like a bungee jumper. The snake eventually manages to free itself after many consecutive jumps that further mutilate the poor reptile’s head. Predator and prey then disappear into the abyss, perhaps for a well-deserved feast.

There are eight different types of mongoose living in Kruger National Park. While many of them feed primarily on insects, others are content to devour fruit and larger animals, such as snakes. In this case, it is not clear whether the mongoose ate the snake or simply found one that had already hunted it.

The animal is a Selous mongoose, the rarest in Kruger, according to National Geographic scientist Kathleen Alexander, and the reptile is a black mamba, one of the largest snakes in Africa. The fact that mongooses have a practical tolerance for the snakes’ lethal claws makes them quite famous for killing them, and this isn’t the first time we’ve witnessed a showdown between a mongoose and a mamba. The tenacious tiny animals have also been seen fighting off lions and leopards.