Cuban Boa: First Reptile Observed Using “Coordinated Hunting” Strategy

Recently, a scientist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville learned that there is a species of snake that hunts in packs. It was discovered that the Cuban Boa uses this strategy in order to improve their odds of catching prey.

This unusual revelation is the first time any reptile has been observed in the practice of “coordinated hunting”. This cooperative hunting strategy refers to when meat eating animals use division of labor, as well as role specialization to hunt prey as a group. Generally, snakes hunt alone, however, the Cuban Boa uses this method as a way to maximize their hunting success.

Vladimir Dinets, an expert on ecology and zoology, and the author of this study, observed these snakes while they hunted fruit bats in Cuba. He claims that the snakes took up positions across the cave’s mouth at particular times each day, in a way that would help the pack improve the chances of capturing it’s prey.

Dinets noted in the study that “Snakes arriving to the hunting area were significantly more likely to position themselves in the part of the passage where other snakes were already present, forming a ‘fence’ across the passage and thus more effectively.”

The pack of 3-6 feet long snakes hang upside down from the roof of the caves in order to create this ‘fence’ that can turn the fruit bats into a meal. Dinets says that, “After sunset and before dawn, some of the boas entered the passage that connected the roosting chamber, and hunted by suspending themselves from the ceiling and grabbing passing bats”. He also claims that the positions each boa took up in the morning and the evening, were chosen specifically in areas that would block the bats pathway into and out of the opening of the cave.

The Assistant Research Professor at the university’s Department of Psychology, says that the reptiles demonstrated a sophistication that has not been observed previously. This type of hunting style requires a higher behavioral complexity than a reptile that hunts on its own because each individual snake must take into account the actions of others in its pack.

While Dinet has said that previous studies have shown that while this method does not really increase the food intake of the pack, it can have a social function. He argues that although there have been other instances of snakes hunting in this form, such as Galapagos Racers, it is uncertain whether or not there is actually any coordination between the reptiles. This study marks the firs time that this phenomenon has been recorded scientifically.

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