Rat Snake mating

Dear all,
Sharing with you a rare sight of rat snakes mating. We had observed this scene at around 8.30 in the morning. The scene took place inside our college campus just near to our Anatomy dissection hall & had a lot of human interference. then we had asked people to stop moving in and around the area. Because the mating was interuppted twice till 11 AM & the snakes had moved apart awaiting a calm atmosphere to reunite. At around 11.30 AM, we had seen those reuniting.

I had to move into the Gent's toilet:001_tongue: for a better view, still not so much as i could shoot all photos through the ventilator holes on the wall. i was too far from the subject & as usual with my only EFS 55 to 250mm, which doesnt give good results from this great distance. But the scene became so rare when a domestic cat had suddenly emerged into the spot & visualized the whole event very closely without disturbing. This made me to post it under natural history section in Indiawilds.
Camera - Canon EOS 1000D
all the images have been cropped.

The next shot when the cat came too near to it.

3rd shot, the snakes are emerging out of the pit

next shot, the cat is simply watching it

next scene... within no time many had gathered along my side to watch it

snakes getting into action

snakes forming a helix

this was the last scene with the cat, after which the cat ran away fastly turning back repeatedly (may be scared)

after the cat went off, the snakes rolled & moved near a staff room..i too had moved into that room from where it was a little closer for me to shoot this scene

there were so many similar shots, but sharing only the important shots here, and this was the last shot of the series.

Lovely Documentation of the event Dr. Hari. Thanks for sharing. :)

A very rare natural history moment captured. The cat witnessing the whole scene truly makes it over the top. You are really lucky to witness this. Thanks for sharing.

very unique pictures. But arent the rat snakes trying to establish dominance rather than mating?
regards
SAnjeev

Wow! Dr.A real natural history moment captured so nicely, however agree with Sanjeev that this may not be mating but territorial fight. Experts can throw some light on this
tfs