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
A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthparts adapted to rasping or grinding. Horses and other herbivores have wide flat teeth that are adapted to grinding grass, tree bark, and other tough plant material.
A deer and two fawns feeding on foliage
A sawfly larva feeding on a leaf
Tracks made by terrestrial gastropods with their radulas, scraping green algae from a surface inside a greenhouse
A fossil Viburnum lesquereuxii leaf with evidence of insect herbivory; Dakota Sandstone (Cretaceous) of Ellsworth County, Kansas. Scale bar is 10 mm.