human beings , you ’re not alone in harboring a criminal element . Some animals have developed kleptoparasitic tendencies , which means they ’re uncoerced to slip food that ’s been take in by another animal . Other animals are just instantly furtive , and will take anything that ’s there for the snatching . Here are seven brute kleptos .
1. Bumblebee
It ’s a tenet of nature that the distinctive bee feeds off the nectar of a plant for pollinating that plant , butsome bees are too crude to play by the rules . Bees who ’ve evolved with short knife and thus ca n’t reach for the sweet nectar have learned to carve golf hole into the side of a flower in club to reach their reward . This phenomenon , first watch by Charles Darwin , have a bee ambrosia without the bee pollinating the plant . More cannily , there ’s grounds suggesting that bees are n’t born behave this way — they learn how to knock off from other bees , a deplorable sign that bee society is being overrun by thug .
2. Sperm whale
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Grace is not a word instinctively associated with the sperm whale , given its hulking sizing . But fishermen complaining about their exhaust haulage were scandalise to disk telecasting of a sperm cell whalenimbly plucking a savory sablefishoff the remainder of a rail line with its tongue , leaving barely a trace of evidence . Whales will practice their sonar to track a fishing boat so they can slip in when the line is heaviest , and are in advance enough to mark between the tastiest catch . Of course , there ’s a schooltime of thought stating that it ’s really the fisher who are stealing from the ocean , and that the spermwhale is just correcting the counterbalance of nature . oppose the power , whale !
3. Skua
A moniker like “ avian pirate ” has a heavy reputation , and the skua ’s plundering maneuver is n’t quite as charming as Johnny Depp ’s . The skuawill gang up on smaller seabirdssuch as the guillemot and kittiwake , force them to give up a recently acquired kill . Sometimes , that means scaring a mark into vomiting up the contents of its stomach ; other times , that mean spearing another bird out of the tune over and over until it drops its catch . It ’s not very overnice , but no bonxie ever claimed it was here to make friends .
4. Hyena
Despite their picture inThe Lion Kingas skeevy flea - bags all too aroused to endorse a untrue king , hyaena arewily hunterswho can hold up on anything and travel in large matriarchally organized clans . And they ’re savvy enough to snatch a fresh kill from beast who have n’t learned to do their search when the hyena is asleep . It ’s payback from when larger computerized tomography steal their own spoils , a natural part of the animal kingdom ’s adaptative ecosystem . Do n’t trust everything you see , even if it ’s a Disney classic .
5. Magpie
Type “ magpie stealing ” into YouTube and a numeral of video will pop up showing a string of eclectic thieving : tea light candles , coathangers , lighters , cigarettes , cookies , bounder intellectual nourishment , raccoon bait , and more . An Englishwoman even think she ’d miss her conflict ring until it turned up three twelvemonth by and by in a magpie ’s nest . Though superstition states that magpies opt shining object , they ’re uncoerced to take whatever — a feature that ’s perhaps enable by a prodigious intelligence rating amongst the highest of all creature . Hence the taken tea visible light candles — clearly , that magpie was smart enough to recognize how much they would ameliorate the mood lighting for a party .
6. Burrowing owl
Pity the pitiable prairie dog , which does so much work building a home ground only to see it taken over by a alien proclaiming a very unproblematic edict : your home or your life story . Theburrowing owl prefers to occupy a tunnel that ’s already been dug out by a prairie dog , and is willing to eat those who are n’t naturally submissive to its bullying . It ’s a truly parasitic relationship , as there ’s evidence showing that burrowing owl populations are drastically depleted in areas where prairie dogs have been aim for extermination . “ I ca n’t give up you ” is n’t the greatest consolation during the eviction process , but it ’s better than nothing .
7. Bdelloid rotifers
A deficiency of sexuality will top a person toward some middling wandering behavior ; still , the the bdelloid rotifer take sexlessness to another stratum . The microscopic brute has been a female - only mintage for 80 million years , but they ’ve nevertheless diversified into hundreds of other subspecies byabsorbing the DNAof fungi , bacterium , algae , and whatever else is small enough to consume at the planktonic level . That allow for them to grow unlike traits to serve survive in wide-ranging environments , since monastic tenacity is at least something in lieu of a hot date .
This post in the beginning appeared last yr .
