A camera trap in Russia's far east region captured a golden eagle attacking a young sika deer.
The image was caught in a series of three images in a matter of seconds Nature World News reported.
According to the science site, Linda Kerley of the Zoological Society of London said she thought the images were very compelling that she co-authored a paper on the attack in the Journal of Raptor Research.
"I've been assessing deer causes of death in Russia for 18 years," she said. "This is the first time I've seen anything like this."
The story is significant because Golden Eagles are not known to attack deer. Those involved with the incident have found the site of the bird latched on to the deer's back and bringing it down to the ground to be clear but also puzzling Nature World News reported.
"There were no large carnivore tracks in the snow, and it looked like the deer had been running and then just stopped and died," Kerley said. "It was only after we got back to camp that I checked the images from the camera and pieced everything together. I couldn't believe what I was seeing."
Prior to the eagle's attack on its prey, Kerley was doing a routine check to take out the camera trap's batteries and memory cards and replace them with new ones when she saw the carcass of the deer in the snow. She then became more curious about the situation when noticing something wasn't right about the scene.
The camera trap is part of a series in the Lazaovskii Nature Reserve in southern far east region of Russia as a way to monitor the area's Amur tigers. Images taken from these spots are usually recordings of common prey species and a resident or transient tiger making the attack a unexpected surprise.
Other researchers beside Kerley have been looking over the area for the last six years.
