Anti-predator adaptations are mechanisms developed through evolution that assist prey organisms in their constant struggle against predators. Throughout the animal kingdom, adaptations have evolved for every stage of this struggle, namely by avoiding detection, warding off attack, fighting back, or escaping when caught.
Anti-predator adaptation in action: the seal shark Dalatias licha (a–c) and the wreckfish Polyprion americanus (d–f) attempt to prey on hagfishes. First, the predators approach their potential prey. Predators bite or try to swallow the hagfishes, but the hagfishes have already projected jets of slime (arrows) into the predators' mouths. Choking, the predators release the hagfishes and gag in an attempt to remove slime from their mouths and gill chambers.
Fruit bats forage by night to avoid predators.
Camouflage illustrated by the flat-tail horned lizard, its flattened, fringed and disruptively patterned body eliminating shadow
Kallima inachus masquerading as a dead leaf
Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation and parasitoidism. It is distinct from scavenging on dead prey, though many predators also scavenge; it overlaps with herbivory, as seed predators and destructive frugivores are predators.
Solitary predator: a polar bear feeds on a bearded seal it has killed.
Social predators: meat ants cooperate to feed on a cicada far larger than themselves.
Spider wasps paralyse and eventually kill their hosts, but are considered parasitoids, not predators.
Carnivorous plant: sundew engulfing an insect
