This is the amazing moment a woman sunbathing in South Africa catches a cobra before it can strike.

The girl, sitting by a lake in Robertson, Western Cape, wearing nothing but a bikini, is captured on video performing the amazing feat seconds after she had been chatting to a friend off-screen.

She uses lightning quick reflexes to grab the reptile by its throat as it launches through the air at her, while a pair of dogs watch on from the waterside, seemingly too terrified to intervene.

Or does she? Eagle-eyed viewers on the internet have spotted the whole incident is a sham.

Another person can be seen in a shadow at the bottom of the screen reeling in the snake using a fishing rod, although the wire does not show up on camera.

Dailymail.co.uk