Cats using teamwork for hunting

I have witnessed 2 cats working together to try and catch prey, they were both related cats and about 10 months old.

#1. They were stalking birds. One cat charged after the birds in the bush to scare them, while the other waited at the opposite end of the bush for any scared birds to land.

#2. One cat hid behind a bush or tree. The other cat chased a squirrel towards the tree or bush where the other cat was hiding, and when the squirrel passed by the cat would leap out of hiding and pursue the squirrel.

So far I have not witnessed any successful catches, but the squirrel hunt was VERY close to success.

Has anyone witnessed this behavior before, I thought all cats hunted solitary?

I've often seen females in feral colonies hunt in teams.
The cats may be domestic, but in a wild state, they act much more like African lions than any other, solitary, big cat.

Fred and his brother would hunt birds as a team. There were several large mockingbirds that would torment the kitties. So one of them would lie on his back in the yard, close to the car tire, and act like he was not worried about any birds. The other would hide behind the tire. The bird would fly down and dive bomb the kitty belly, and the cat hiding behind the tire grabbed the bird. They did this several times until the birds moved on.

Interesting! I'll keep an eye and see if any become successful.

my raven and nabu are littermates, and i've witnessed them hunt as a team (an apartment i had while in college that had a mouse living in it). i know raven killed the mouse, but they worked as a team to get it.

raven and nabu have also teamed up to defend each other. i witnessed this when we had to stay at my in-laws' house for a while. if felix cornered one of them, the other would materialize out of nowhere to defend his brother.

i've never seen other cats exhibit this behavior. i was so afraid when we adopted stimpy they would tag-team him. but they adopted him as an honorary brother. he's part of their family now.

I discovered several months ago that my 2 oldest cats, Bird and Meggie (Bird was Meggie's foster mom- nursed her from 6 weeks to 12 weeks) go hunting in the woods behind our neighborhood together (a neighbor was afraid that they had been dropped off, and I went down the street to check and see if the cats she was seeing were mine- they were . They had discovered that she had 20 wooded acres next to her house, and they were raised in the country, so they apparently like her acreage ). Mine also (all 4 of them) will come to another's defense against a strange cat. If the strange cat is outside and looking in the window, however, they will all come and growl at him, then someone touches someone else and then they beat the stuffing out of each other .

my two cats, who are unrelated and of opposite sex do hunt as a team. I often wondered if all domestic cats do this. now I know it is not so uncommon. they also sleep together, but won't eat together out of the same bowl, they each have their own.