Preying

In an ecosystem, predation is a biological interaction where a predator (an organism that is hunting) feeds on its prey (the organism that is attacked). Predators may or may not kill their prey prior to feeding on it, but the act of predation often results in the death of the prey and the eventual absorption of the prey's tissue through digestion. It could also constitute a chase, stalking, or attack of prey. Thus predation is often, though not always, carnivory. Other categories of consumption are herbivory (eating parts of plants), fungivory (eating parts of fungi), and detritivory (the consumption of dead organic material). All of these are consumer-resource systems. It can often be difficult to separate various types of feeding behaviors. For example, some parasites prey on their host and then lay their eggs on it, for their offspring to feed on it while it continues to live, or on its decaying corpse after it has died. The key characteristic of predation is the predator's direct impact on the prey population.

Selective pressures imposed on one another often leads to an evolutionary arms race between prey and predator, resulting in various antipredator adaptations. Ways of classifying predation include grouping by trophic level or diet, by specialization, and by the predator's interaction with prey.

Predators can be classified by their consumer-resource interactions with their prey. Two factors are considered here: how close the predator and prey (or host) are, and whether the prey is directly killed by the predator, where true predation and parasitoidism involve certain death.

A true predator is one that kills and eats another living thing. Predators may hunt actively for prey in pursuit predation, or sit and wait for prey to approach within striking distance, as in ambush predators. Some predators kill large prey and dismember or chew it prior to eating it, such as a jaguar or a human; others may eat their prey whole, as does a bottlenose dolphin swallowing a fish, or a stork swallowing a frog. Some predation entails venom that subdues a prey before the predator ingests it, as in the box jellyfish, or disables it, as in the cone shell. In some cases, the venom contributes to the digestion of the prey, as in rattlesnakes and some spiders. In contrast, baleen whales eat millions of microscopic plankton at once, swallowing them alive. Seed and egg predation are true predation, as seeds and eggs are potential organisms. Predators need not eat prey entirely; for example, some predators cannot digest bones. Some may eat only part of an organism, but still consistently cause its death.

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