46-year-old Dave Hughes was on his way back to his car after spending the day photographing wildlife at The Great Orme in North Wales when he spotted and quickly shot the explosive moment a wild rabbit took on a stoat on the slopes of a Welsh mountain. 

The stoat was chasing a rabbit and Dave get off a burst of shots to capture the moment the rabbit fought back. 

The rabbit seemingly grabbed the stoat by the head, and leapt into the air. It momentarily caused his aggressor to lose its footing, and the rabbit seized this opportunity to make his getaway.

The short but heated altercation ended with both sides unscathed. But the stoat did look quite upset, while the rabbit seemed to be "roaring" with victory.

The wild rabbit (why not a hare? check it here for explanation) looks really big and strong. Comparatively, the stoat, which is supposed to be a predator, is quite small. In fact, the average body length of a stoat is between 17 and 32.5 centimeters and a weight of only 180-260 grams. Sometimes the stoat is able to hunt and kill large prey, such as rabbits and hares; in Britain where the pictured scenes occurred, European rabbits are an important food source of stoats. More often, it feeds on mice and other small rodents. 

In this pictured fight, if the small stoat successfully caught the big fat rabbit, chances were that it would not eat it immediately, because the rabbit was way too large. Interestingly, stoats may store surplus food and eat later to avoid obesity, because an overweight stoat tends to be at a disadvantage when pursuing prey. 

(Cover photo via VCG. Edited by An Qi)

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