diff --git a/python/cog/__init__.py b/python/cog/__init__.py
index 988af6e285..dd3bcedf4f 100644
--- a/python/cog/__init__.py
+++ b/python/cog/__init__.py
@@ -1,6 +1,9 @@
+import mimetypes
+
 from pydantic import BaseModel
 
 from .base_predictor import BasePredictor
+from .mimetypes_ext import install_mime_extensions
 from .server.scope import current_scope
 from .types import (
     ConcatenateIterator,
@@ -11,6 +14,8 @@
     Secret,
 )
 
+install_mime_extensions(mimetypes)
+
 try:
     from ._version import __version__
 except ImportError:
diff --git a/python/cog/mimetypes_ext.py b/python/cog/mimetypes_ext.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..d1a13f10cf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/python/cog/mimetypes_ext.py
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+import typing
+
+if typing.TYPE_CHECKING:
+    from typing_extensions import Protocol
+else:
+    Protocol = object
+
+
+class IMimeTypes(Protocol):
+    def add_type(self, type: str, ext: str, strict: bool = True) -> None: ...
+
+
+def install_mime_extensions(mimetypes: IMimeTypes) -> None:
+    """
+    Older versions of Python are missing the MIME types for more recent file formats
+    this function adds the missing MIME types to the mimetypes module.
+    """
+
+    # This could also be done by loading a mime.types file from disk using
+    # mimetypes.read_mime_types().
+    mimetypes.add_type("image/webp", ".webp")
diff --git a/python/tests/test_mimetypes_ext.py b/python/tests/test_mimetypes_ext.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..a1e5303321
--- /dev/null
+++ b/python/tests/test_mimetypes_ext.py
@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+from mimetypes import MimeTypes
+
+from cog.mimetypes_ext import install_mime_extensions
+
+
+def test_webp_ext_support():
+    # Assert on empty database.
+    mt = MimeTypes(filenames=tuple())
+    assert mt.guess_type("image.webp") == (None, None)
+    install_mime_extensions(mt)
+    assert mt.guess_type("image.webp") == ("image/webp", None)
+
+    # Assert global override
+    import mimetypes
+
+    import cog  # noqa: F401
+
+    assert mimetypes.guess_type("image.webp") == ("image/webp", None)