Inecology,predation describes a relationship and actions between two creatures. Apredator catches, attacks, and eats itsprey.[1] Predators may or may not kill their prey before eating them. But the act of predation always causes the death of its prey and taking in the prey's body parts into the predators body. A true predator can be thought of as one which both kills and eats another animal, but many animals act as both predator andscavenger.
Apredator is ananimal thathunts, catches, and eats other animals. For example, aspider eating a fly caught at its web is a predator, or a pack oflions eating a buffalo. The animals that the predator hunts are calledprey. Predators mostly do not eat other predators.[2][3][4] It has also been suggested that they know it may transmit disease.[5] Atop predator orapex predator is one that is not the prey of other predators.
Abeetle larva attacking afish.A female goldenrod crab spider (Misumena vatia) capturing the female of a pair of mating flies.
Ambush predators orsit-and-wait predators arecarnivorous animals or other organisms, such as somecarnivorous plants. They capture or trap prey by stealth or strategy (not conscious strategy), rather than just by speed or strength.
These organisms usually hide quiet and wait for prey to come within striking distance. They often arecamouflaged, and may be solitary. This may be safer for the predator, because lying in wait exposes it less to its own predators.
When a predator cannot move faster than its preferred prey,ambushing its prey is likely to be more efficient than pursuit. A predator that can move at high speed for a long time can be a pursuit predator, chasing until its prey tires and slows. There are however many intermediate strategies; for example when a pursuit predator is faster than its prey over a short distance, but not in a long chase, then eitherstalking or ambushing becomes part of the strategy.[6]
