Nothing stops you in your tracks quite like finding two huge brawling reptiles blocking the way.
Hikers exploring Queensland's Noosa National Park this week were forced to take an unplanned rest stop to allow a lace monitor (also known as a lace goanna) to fight it out with what looks to be a carpet python.
Goannas are famously unfussy eaters (and Disney's favourite egg thieves), and snakes are definitely on the menu, but we don't actually know whether this python ended up becoming lunch.
"After the goanna dragged the snake off the track, we continued to hear them fighting. We don't know who won," the hikers told Guardian Australia.
The lizards belong to the family Varanidae, which also includes the world's largest living lizard, the Komodo dragon. They can grow as long as two metres (over 6.8ft) and the largest adults can weigh as much as 20 kilograms (44lbs).
This may have been the goanna's lucky day, but out in the Australian wilderness, some days you're the predator, and some days you're the prey.
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Top header image: Jochen Bullerjahn, Flickr
Backyard wildlife
Animal Behaviour
Backyard wildlife
