--- title: Squirrel Mom Protects Babies From Cobra in Intense Standoff description: This video proves that even cobras should know better than to mess with a mother! canonical: https://time.com/5794637/squirrel-snake/ author: Melissa Locker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-03-03T16:51:34.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:01:20.795Z og:title: Squirrel Mom Protects Babies From Cobra in Intense Standoff With All the Tricks og:description: Even cobras should know better than to mess with a mother! og:url: https://time.com/5794637/squirrel-snake/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt407cf169f2be763b/698a0b1109208f9a21416687/Squirrel.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2121 og:image:height: 1193 og:image:alt: Squirrel on the lookout for food early morning og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Squirrel Mom Protects Babies From Cobra in Intense Standoff With All the Tricks twitter:description: Even cobras should know better than to mess with a mother! twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt407cf169f2be763b/698a0b1109208f9a21416687/Squirrel.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Tough Squirrel Mother Will Stop at Nothing to Protect the Babies From a Cobra in This Intense Standoff > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Mar 3, 2020 4:51 PM UTC  Squirrel on the lookout for food early morning Squirrel on the lookout for food early morningGetty Images by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Mar 3, 2020 4:51 PM UTC Even cobras should know better than to mess with a mother protecting her babies. That maxim is proven once again in a two-minute video shared by the [Kruger Sightings YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVJGKKLWPcw). In the clip, captured at [South Africa](https://time.com/5581483/time-cover-south-africa/)’s Kruger National Park, a Cape cobra, which would be intimidating to many much larger mammals, including this human, is seen lunging at a Cape ground squirrel. While the [squirrel](https://time.com/5420467/emotional-support-squirrel-flight/) understandably falls back a few feet, it doesn’t run off like this human would do in the face of a giant snake. Instead, the determined squirrel bravely stands its ground, facing off against the large snake. It seems like the [squirrel](https://time.com/5493311/egg-roll-squirrel/) doesn’t stand a chance and even one of the camera operators can be heard commenting, “he’s not going to win against this.” The camera operator should have been referring to the snake. That’s because the [squirrel](https://time.com/5674094/squirrel-smelling-flower/) was not a he, but a she—and she was a mother who wasn’t going to let any pesky old snake anywhere near her babies. According to safari guide Dave Pusey, whose experience witnessing the fight of a lifetime is included in the caption to the YouTube video, the female squirrel most likely “had youngsters close by and just wanted the cobra to move away from the area.” As the battle stretched on for half an hour, the squirrel used some slick tricks to exhaust the snake, using its tail to distract the cobra, luring it to lunge, and then jumping away at the last minute. Eventually, the snake was too tired to keep up the fight and found a hole to slither off, proving that the squirrel is one tough mother. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5794637/squirrel-snake/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5794637/squirrel-snake/"},"headline":"Tough Squirrel Mother Will Stop at Nothing to Protect the Babies From a Cobra in This Intense Standoff","datePublished":"2020-03-03T16:51:34.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:01:20.795Z","description":"Even cobras should know better than to mess with a mother!","url":"https://time.com/5794637/squirrel-snake/","keywords":["Newsfeed","animals","viral","photography","onetime","clickmonsters"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt407cf169f2be763b/698a0b1109208f9a21416687/Squirrel.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Locker","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt407cf169f2be763b/698a0b1109208f9a21416687/Squirrel.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Squirrel on the lookout for food early morning","caption":"Squirrel on the lookout for food early morning","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5794637/squirrel-snake/","name":"Tough Squirrel Mother Will Stop at Nothing to Protect the Babies From a Cobra in This Intense Standoff"}}]}] ```