VIDEO: Burmese python fights alligator in Big Cypress swamp

On a bike ride in Big Cypress, a reporter with the Palm Beach Post assumed the alligator slashing in swampy waters nearby was trying to escape his approach.

But this particular alligator had a much more frightening opponent - a Burmese python.

Joe Capozzi, reporter for the Palm Beach Post, took out his camera and recorded more than eight minutes of harrowing fight between the snake and the gator.

The alligator thrashed around under the water as it became further coiled by the python, which occasionally poked its head above the water to catch a breath.

Capozzi wrote in the Post, he later learned it was a fight rarely witnessed in the wild.

"It was all at once terrifying, mesmerizing and beautiful, a battle between predator and prey that at times looked as graceful as a water ballet," Capozzi wrote.

Burmese python are not native to Florida and are considered an invasive species, although they are recognized internationally as threatened. A yearly python hunt is organized in the Everglades to try and tamp down the snakes' destruction of native wildlife.

Read more from the Palm Beach Post here: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/video-big-cypress-bike-ride-watched-python-wrestle-alligator/YmShcrbLaGlyXpIFJyiUlM/