Yes, it is one of the many interesting features of split, from the pod:

    If the PATTERN contains parentheses, additional
    list elements are created from each matching
    substring in the delimiter.

        split(/([,-])/, "1-10,20", 3);

    produces the list value

        (1, '-', 10, ',', 20)
[download]

Other interesting features of split are LIMIT, negative LIMIT, the parameter-less split, the difference between ' ', / / and /\s+/ and the implicit split to @_ when not in a list context (which is very useful in Golf).

I used one of these features in Strip leading and trailing whitespace from a string..

--
John.