Kleptoparasitism is a way of feeding where one animal steals prey from another that has caught, killed or prepared the prey, including food that has been stored. Using sly foraging strategy, animal thieves steal food already procured by other animals. If you have ever experienced that a seagull grabbed a sandwich from your picnic at the beach, you’ve played host to a kleptoparasite. But seagull is not the only one, of course. Check out the rest of these animal thieves.
1. Chinstrap Penguins
Named for their unique facial markings the chinstrap penguins are one of the most easily recognized penguin species and one of only 2 species; the other is the royal penguin, with extensive white on the face. These penguin species are one of the most aggressive ones and will fight when the breeding season comes, mostly with individuals they see as competition for nesting sites. But this charming chinstrap detail was designed to mimic a smile to distract from the fact that these cute little penguins are known for robbing nest materials and use for their own.
While most common kleptoparasitism behavior refers to animals that steal food from others, taking materials from shelter gains this penguin a status of a hard criminal in animal world.
2. Hyenas
Hyenas are no laughing matter. They are fascinating creatures, but they do not mess around; an adult spotted hyena can rip off and devour 40 or 50 pounds of flesh per feeding. However, hyenas can also steal from the larger and more powerful lions. So what is their secret? Why are they not afraid? Just as with the ants, it lies in numbers. If a group of hyenas outnumbers the lions feeding at a kill by a factor of four, they may challenge them.
It is a toss-up to whether or not they will succeed, because the presence of much larger male lions can make thing highly dangerous. One research has shown that 71% of all hyena mortality was due to lions.
3. Rats
Rats prefer to share food and shelter with people. Rats and their parasites share our workplaces, restaurants, hospitals, schools, food processing plants and especially our homes. They share the food we eat and the furniture where we sleep, relax and store our belongings. They usually use plumbing voids as well as circulation vents to travel from one part of building to another. In nature rats eat mostly the large, cryptic eggs of colonial nesting birds and consume the eggs in the nest. They make a hole on the side or end of the egg making characteristic chip marks, then lick all from inside.
A common myth is that rats co-operate to steal chicken eggs; one lies on its back, holding the egg to its chest, while another rat pulls out the content with its tail. But this is not true.
4. Cuckoo Bees
Cuckoo bees are kleptoparasites, meaning that they steal the food stores provisioned by the host bee. These bees look more like wasps than other bees; their bodies are more slender and with less hair and their wings are thinner. Because they can't collect pollen themselves, they don't have clumps of pollen on their bodies or legs but only loose pollen. These bees mostly have red and yellow markings. The female cuckoo bee lays her eggs in the ground nests of other bees and also the sunflower bee. So, after these eggs hatch, the larva will eat the pollen ball collected by their hosts, kill and eat the host, as well.
Like all kleptomaniacs they have found a way to make it in this world at the expense of others.
5. Sperm Whales
Sperm whales are most known largest toothed carnivoures on earth. They are well known for their grayish color. The unique body from sperm whales design also offers a very large head with rows of sharp teeth. Orcas will occasionally hunt other whales even the giant blue whales, but they will never get close to the sperm whale, because its formidable lower jaw is the most effective and biggest weapon possessed by any animal on planet. Sperm whales habitually steal and eat fish from fishermen.
In Alaska sperm whales are consuming at least 10 to 15 % of sablefish off of longlines, and sperm whales have also been spotted stealing fish from nets. Yes, it's rough on the fisherman but still. Justice through kleptoparasitism is a little bit awesome.
6. Dewdrop Spiders
The dew drop spider is a kleptoparasite (it steals food from other spiders) and has a range of behavior. It is very mobile and may be free-living in its own web or together with a host. When it decides to occupy a host web, it builds a lightweight support web below that from the host to allow quickly escape with scavenged food. It can steel prey from the host web or the small invader may even eat alongside the host. It is also a spider eater (an araneophage) and may attack the host spider when it is incapacitated during a moult or feed on newly hatched baby spiders.
In a web these small spiders are well disguised as specks of frayed bark or twig or water droplets. The egg sac is papery, pale-brown, inverted-urn shaped and made in a special small tangle web.
7. Water Cricket (Velia caprai)
The water cricket (Velia caprai) is a species of riffle bug which is widely distributed throughout Europe. Like the closest related pond skaters will forage on the water’s surface using the surface tension to stay afloat. This surface skating aquatic bug has all kinds of sophisticated cricket tricks that it knows. Together with developing such a horrible taste that trout actually spit them out unharmed, they are also known for their „expansion skating“ when they spit onto the water to lower the tension of surface allowing them to double increase their travel speed.
They are also good with practicing group kleptoparasitism. If one has some stolen prey that is too heavy to transport, other water crickets come from around to rescue and help eat the prize.
8. Western Gulls
Kleptoparasitism is relatively uncommon in birds. However, some seabirds dive into the depths to capture fish. Other seabirds, like the western gull are not diving birds. So how is a non-diving bird supposed to catch fish? Right from the beak of bird that can dive and if that fails, there are always plenty of sandwiches at the beach for the picking. Western gull will also steal unguarded eggs or chicks of other species, so they usually move to their nesting colonies. They will also visit colonies near sea lion breeding colonies and scavenge deceased pups.
These gulls like many other gull species, drop things with a hard shell from the air to break them on hard surface. So, because of their adaptable life their number is constantly rising.
9. Crows
Crows are probably the most common predators of bird nests. They are versatile and abundant commensals of humans. They are omnivorous feeding primarily on refuse supplemented by stolen food, crops, nest-raiding and predation of small animals including marine invertebrates and terrestrial animals. These birds use their intelligence in so many different additional foraging strategies, like searching for insects, picking discarded fish from the water surface and picking ticks and opening up wounds on livestock. They forage around houses, parks, gardens, markets, along the seashore and among livestock. They are highly intelligent but are unusual in being very gregarious in their commitment to life together with humans.
Their population can reach a high number in urban areas, where their large groups may gather at sources of food.
10. Foxes
The fox has a narrow, pointed muzzle, a thick, soft fur and a long, bushy tail. The throat, chest, belly, tip of the tail, lower regions of the face and muzzle are all white. The slender nose, feet, legs, nose, and backs of the pointed, erect ears are black in color. Foxes generally carry eggs away from nests. They may then eat them or bury them for eating later. When they decide eat eggs, the whole egg is swallowed, crushed and the contents eaten but the eggshells are later left somewhere near the nest.
A fox will often catch partridges, mallards and pheasants on their nests. If this occurs, the nest will be ruined, with scattered feathers if the carcass has been carried away or the remains of the carcass if it has been eaten nearby.
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