A scientist from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville has discovered that a species of snake, the Cuban boa, hunts in groups, and through teamwork improve their chances of catching prey. The study's author, Vladimir Dinets, observed the snakes hunting fruit bats in Cuba. Taking up positions across a cave mouth at dawn and dusk, the individual snakes would position themselves in a way as to improve the odds of the pack making a kill. "Coordinated hunting requires higher behavioral complexity because each animal has to take other hunters' actions into account." Other instances of snakes hunting together have been observed, he concludes, including the BBC's heart-in-mouth Planet Earth II segment of Galapagos racers hunting a baby iguana , but it's far from certain that there is any coordination between individual animals.

Source: CNN May 26, 2017 08:15 UTC