The karst caves of north-western Puerto Rico in the Caribbean are home to a surprisingly large array of animals.<\/p>\n
Some of these creatures are small. Cockroaches and other bugs scuttle from nook to cranny, while freshwater crabs and crayfish hide in the cold, dark pools.<\/p>\n
Then there are bats, thousands of them, with species such as the Antillean ghost-faced bat and sooty moustached bat using the network of caverns as a place to roost and raise young.<\/p>\n
These dank tunnels may seem like a safe refuge for the flying mammals, but a silent predator is lurking in the shadows. To be more accurate, it’s hanging in the shadows. Meet the Puerto Rican boa.<\/p>\n
Measuring approximately 1\u20132m in length, this non-venomous snake has devised a special hunting trick. Using the end of its tail, it hooks onto a crack in the cave ceiling, lowers the rest of its body into the air, then waits.<\/p>\n
The boa’s diet includes various animals, such as lizards<\/a>, birds and rodents. But it has also developed a taste for the unsuspecting bats.<\/p>\n In this amazing footage, several Puerto Rican boas can be seen hanging from the entrance of a cave. At one point, a boa attempts to snatch a bat straight out of the air. Once the prey is in its grasp, this skilful snake wraps its body around its victim, eventually constricting it to death<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Incredible footage shows Puerto Rican boas hunting for bats. Credit: daysedge\/Getty Images<\/p>\n More amazing wildlife stories from around the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The karst caves of north-western Puerto Rico in the Caribbean are home to a surprisingly large array of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":{"0":"post-324551","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}