Tuesday, June 28, 2011

KLEPTOPARASITISM


Kleptoparasitism: 

klepto: Greek κλέπτης ("thief") and κλέπτω ("steal") + parasitos: παράσιτος ("person who eats at the table of another")

Meaning: The parasitic theft of captured prey, nest material, etc., from animals of the same or another species; such as the theft by a gull* of a featherwight GoPro camera from a tourist on the French Riviera.

*Possibly a European herring gull (Larus argentatus).

(European herring gull. Credit: Kulac via Wikimedia Commons.)

The gull video reminded me of another wild travel video shot by a sea turtle on a "stolen" underwater camera.




The sea turtle video is more likely a case of entanglement than of kleptoparasitism.

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