There's not many animals that give a fully-grown leopard a run for his money.
Leopard porcupine Spiky: The porcupine is in no mood for games as his tormentor gets his paws clear
But in this game of cat and mouse - or more accurately, cat and porcupine - there was only ever going to be one winner.
Lazing in a tree, the two-year-old male leopard decided to have some fun with the prickly rodent. But the porcupine was in no mood to be denied a drink at a nearby pond and ‘spiked up’ its 30cm-long spines.
Leopard porcupine The young leopard tries to find a way past the spines of the porcupine
Some 25 minutes and several spines in paws later, the big cat gave up tormenting the rodent and went back to his tree.
‘Excitement hardly describes my feelings – it was one of my top wildlife sightings ever,’ said Shem Compion, 33, who captured the scene in Botswana’s Mashatu game reserve.
/Metro.co.uk/Click pictures to enlarge: