Kleptoparasitism

From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium

Kleptoparasitism (also known as food usurpation, robbing behaviour or piracy behaviour), is a foraging strategy which involves the stealing of food items discovered and captured by other foragers, particularly when food sources are scarce. So far, it has been observed in a variety of animal taxa, ranging from molluscs to arthropods to all classes of vertebrates, except amphibians. In birds, its occurence was found to be correlated with residual brain size (and hence cognition), habitat and diet but not with body size or aggression (Morand-Ferron et al., 2007).