This is the intense moment when two leopards encounter a python — and predators collide. 

Leopards are extremely athletic animals with light physiques, strong legs, and impressive tree climbing abilities. They are renowned for their ability to drag the large carcasses of their prey up into the tree tops.

This exciting encounter begins when a large python comes striking out of the brush, forcing a seemingly solitary leopard to react.

Typically hunters that prefer to feed on antelopes, deer, and rodents, leopards are also opportunistic, and this one does not turn away at the chance of meal.

The giant snake is forced into the open where the leopard begins assailing it with successive swipes of its paw.

As the snake attempts to slink away, the leopard bravely pursues it, continuing its incessant striking. Soon another leopard appears on the scene and the odds begin to look grim for the outnumbered snake.

These large snakes are ambush predators that kill their prey by grabbing them with backwards facing fangs and then performing asphyxiation via constriction.

Although nonvenomous, once a python gets its body situated around a mammal in preparation for construction, there is usually no escape from impending suffocation.

This team of leopards measure up their prey, developing a plan for takedown.

One continues to attack furiously while the other hangs back, guarding the area.