Watch: Brave rat goes head to head with snake in Marrara

The rat looked well on top at the beginning of the fight, but who walked away victorious in the end?

In just his second month in Australia, 27-year-old Irishman Liam Shannon finally got to see the snake he had been hoping to catch sight of.

He just didn’t expect it to be in a wild fight with a rat.

“I was just at work and I saw this rat kind of hopping,” he said.

“Then I looked back and I had no clue what was going on and then I noticed he was just fighting a snake.”

Mr Shannon, a fencer, was at work at the Marrara Fire Station on Friday when he came across the showdown and at first thought it might be an everyday occurrence in Australia.

Rat takes on a snake in Darwin. Picture: Liam Shannon.

Rat takes on a snake in Darwin. Picture: Liam Shannon.

“I have been in Aus two months and I kind of thought it was normal to be seeing that stuff,” he said.

“That was until the lads said they had never seen anything like it.”

Mr Shannon had to stop filming and get back to work mid-bout, but the rat looked well on top at that stage.

But what was the final result of the showdown?

“That’s what it looked like (the rat winning the fight), but it didn’t end up that way,” he said.

“I went back later to where the fight was and the rat was laid out there, with strangle marks along its neck.”

While the snake was ultimately victorious, the biggest surprise was it didn’t feast on its opponent afterward.