Florida wildlife keeps getting weirder.
A Florida woman posted this amazing video she shot of an eastern coral snake trying to eat a dead rat snake.
In the course of the meal, a huge wasp tries to get in on the action by attacking the coral snake.
Um ok, @UFEntomology and @MartaWayneUF , I believe I just witnessed a BEE ? stinging a CORAL SNAKE ? while the CORAL was dining on a RAT (?) SNAKE ? and I need your support to process this. @UF #FloridaBackyard pic.twitter.com/djbJJGxaUk
— Evangeline Cummings (@EvieCummings23) October 17, 2019
Twitter users chimed in on what they had seen:
That’s wild! It’s a Yellowjacket wasp; not sure it actually stung the snake (based on wasp movements) but snake clearly wanted it gone… very cool!
— Andrew Warren (@AndyBugGuy) October 17, 2019
The working theory as posited by Cummings:
“So we’ve now settled on our favorite theory: rat snake was dropped by a hawk or similar and landed in the rosebush,” Cummings wrote. “But the rat snake is somewhat twisted around the branches so I wonder if when it was dropped it was still partially alive and tried to free itself and could not.”
What do you think happened here?