Proof that even the big predators, carnivores like Mountain Lions, can be chased off their kills by smaller animals. Watch a tiny Spotted Skunk temporarily send this big cat packing right at about the 4:15 mark.

This is a supplementary video for an article published in The Canadian Field-Naturalist and was taken with a motion-triggered camera.

“Encounter competition occurs frequently over food resources and may include kleptoparasitism, where scavengers usurp prey killed by carnivores. Scavenging may have important adverse effects on carnivores and may result in higher than expected kill rates by predators. We placed a camera trap on a Black-tailed Deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) carcass killed by a Cougar (Puma concolor) in California. We then documented a series of encounters in which a Western Spotted Skunk (Spilogale gracilis) temporally usurped the carcass from the Cougar, and also successfully defended the carcass when the Cougar returned and attempted to feed. The Spotted Skunk was about 1% of the mass of the Cougar, and this video documents the largest published size differential of a mammalian species engaging in successful encounter competition.”