Staff at the Lady Elliott Island Eco Resort off the southern Great Barrier Reef in Australia are familiar with the cheeky antics of a male bottlenose dolphin they’ve nicknamed Bubbles. Since at least 2017, Bubbles has been known to chase bigeye trevally, stressing them to the point of vomiting their recently consumed meals. These regurgitated meals are then eagerly devoured by Bubbles.

The paper, published in the journal Ecology and Evolution, describes Bubbles’s behavior as kleptoparasitism, a practice where one species takes food from another, often through aggressive means. This behavior is not unique to Bubbles; other animals like bears, coyotes, wolves, and even seabirds exhibit similar behaviors.

The technical term for Bubbles’s antics is kleptoparasitism, and it’s usually seen when one species steals food from another, often through outright aggression. Bees and wasps, such as the cuckoo wasp, are common culprits, laying their eggs in the nests of other wasps. Opportunistic predators like raptors, gulls, terns, and bald eagles have been caught stealing food from other birds. Skuas and frigatebirds, seabirds themselves, are known for stealing from other seabirds, and even Eurasian blackbirds can be seen taking smashed snails from thrushes.

When it comes to marine mammals, there have been reports of Risso’s dolphins charging at sperm whales, which can lead to the whales regurgitating their food, a treat Bubbles is always ready to snatch. However, such behavior among aquatic species is exceedingly rare, making Bubbles’s kleptoparasitism particularly noteworthy. Between June 2021 and October 2025, the authors collected 20 documented foraging sightings of Bubbles, 11 of which involved kleptoparasitic behavior.