A video of a red-legged seriema with a golf ball has social media theorising furiously – though perhaps only half seriously.

Featuring a flightless predatory bird, mostly found in Latin America, the video shows this particular red-legged seriema carrying the ball in its beak to a concrete pathway and dropping it hard on the ground. As the ball bounces, the bird rushes about, flapping its wings, ecstatic with joy.

Was it just playing? One suggestion was the bird probably thought the ball was an egg and was trying to break it. Another said flinging objects to the ground was what the bird did to small animals in order to kill them.