A pair of huge male carpet pythons have been captured on film wrestling over a female in a vicious brawl. The footage was filmed in Queensland, Australia, and shared on TikTok by snake catcher Jake Stinson, who runs Jake's Reptile Relocations.

In the footage, the 10-foot snakes can be seen writhing on the floor and grappling each other to the point of exhaustion. "They were huge, about as long and definitely as thick as they ever get," Stinson told Newsweek.

"It's very cool to witness and mesmerizing to watch," he said. "It sounds incredible too. They let out deep hisses throughout.... It sounds similar to a truck's exhaust."

How cool are these guys! This is what happens when to males who smell a female during breeding season run into each other on the way. Coastal carpet python male combat #python #pythons #australia #snake #snakes #snakecatcher #reptile #reptiles

The adult snakes are typically between 6 and 10 feet long, Stinson said. As constrictors, they may attempt to suffocate their opponent, but because of the smoothness of their scales, they can constantly slip out of each other's grip.

"They can't really injure the other, [they] just tire them out," Stinson said. "They go at it for absolute hours, pushing each other's heads down and gripping quite hard at times to subdue their opponent."

The pythons were named after the distinctive pattern on their scales, which resemble an oriental carpet. Their coloring is highly variable, ranging from olive to black, and the patterning can be extremely intricate, according to the Queensland Museum.

Carpet pythons are one of the most popular snake breeds to keep as pets, Stinson said. They are also very common in the wild across mainland Australia as well as in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the latter's Yule Island. "It is believed one in three Queensland roofs have a python in it," Stinson said.

Luckily, carpet pythons are not venomous. Instead, they are ambush predators that kill their prey by constriction. "What kills them is actually cutting off the blood circulation to the brain," Stinson said. They often eat rats and other vermin, so they perform a useful service to homeowners.

While the snakes are usually harmless, there have been some accounts of carpet pythons eating family pets. In 2021, a large python suffocated a pet cat in Buderim, Queensland. Small dogs, guinea pigs and chickens have also been victims, thanks to the pythons' powerful coils.

The females tend to be larger than the males, often weighing four times as much. This is because they need large supplies of fat to support their eggs. To keep the eggs warm, the female will wrap herself around the clutch and generate heat through muscle contractions, which use a lot of energy.

The pythons tend to breed in late summer and early fall.

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