In the caves of Cuba, at Desembarco del Granma National Park, boas hunt in packs. That’s the conclusion of a study published in Animal Behavior and Cognition by Vladimir Dinets, a research assistant professor of psychology. His study was featured by national and international media outlets.
Dinets’ recent study shows that some snakes coordinate their hunts to increase their chances of success.
Many Cuban caves shelter large bat colonies, and in some of them small populations of boas regularly hunt the bats as they fly out at dusk and return at dawn. Dinets noticed that the boas hung down from the ceiling of the cave entrance and grabbed passing bats in midair. He found that if more than one boa was present, the snakes coordinated their positions in such a way that they formed a wall across the entrance. This made it difficult or impossible for the bats to pass without getting within striking distance of at least one boa.
Outlets that featured the study include CNN, Time, Mashable, Daily Mail, CBS News, Gizmodo, Atlas Obscura, Voice of America (VOA) News, Mother Nature Network, Tech Times, Esquire, New York Post, Popular Science, AOL, Mental Floss, Huffington Post Australia, National Geographic, Live Science, The Week, RedOrbit, New York’s Pix 11, Local8Now, and the Knoxville News Sentinel.
Related: Study Shows Snakes, Thought to Be Solitary Eaters, Coordinate Hunts