Mongoose Fights Off Lions, Shows Us The Definition Of Courage

This mongoose has courage, and we're not lion.

Faced with fierce cats in Kenya's Masaai Mara National Park, this plucky mongoose opted to fight back. Videographer Jerome Guillaumot captured the scene in 2011, but only recently released the footage online.

In the video, the mongoose repeatedly bares its teeth, emits a terrifying squealing noise and charges the lions, who retreat in the face of such aggression. Though the small animal ultimately escapes to safety in a burrow, it later emerges to mount a second attack.

Mongooses, notes National Geographic, are famously brave animals. Some species are known to attack venomous cobras.

Of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's 39 listed species of mongoose, seven are categorized as "vulnerable," "endangered" or "critically endangered" due to loss of habitat.

WATCH the mongoose fight off the lions, above.