Translations of predator in Chinese Traditional. See more. Need a translator? Translator tool. What is the pronunciation of predator?
Browse predate. Test your vocabulary with our fun image quizzes. Image credits. Word of the Day goodwill. Blog Outsets and onsets! A predatory person or animal. A sexual predator. Any animal or other organism that hunts and kills other organisms their prey , primarily for food. Someone who attacks and plunders for gain. A person or group that robs, victimizes, or exploits others for gain. Lions are seen to kill big buffalos that are sometimes five times the weight of individuals.
Group predation is commonly seen in ants as well. Predation is not only seen in animals but also in other living beings, such as carnivorous plants. Examples include pitcher plants and Venus flytrap that prey on insects and flies.
As you will see, there are three stages of venus flytrap predation. Firstly, the trap which is a pair of modified leaves is open waiting for prey to enter. When a prey e. By the next stimulation, the plant totally shuts its trap sealing the prey inside.
The trap then serves as a digestive organ, secreting enzymes that digest the prey. As for the pitcher, there is a pool of water containing digestive enzymes that digest the insect into absorbable food.
The digestive enzymes dissolve the insect and the plant gets the nutrients. What is a predator? We can define predators as the species that use other species as their food. There are animal predators such as cats, wolves, lions, etc. Predator and prey have an ecological relationship that keeps the population of both in control. When a predatory animal starts consuming its prey, the population of prey will decrease while that of the predator will increase.
After some time there will be less prey while more predators. The lesser food will result in a decrease in the population of predators and as result, the population of prey will start increasing.
This predator-prey relationship is naturally present on earth for millions of years. Further details about this have been discussed in the Population dynamics of predator and prey.
There are several types of predators depending on their size, biology, and nature of predation. However, predators are largely considered carnivores or meat-eaters.
Other references though include herbivores and parasites as predators based on the definition of predation that incorporates the ecological flow of energy between organisms. Predators search, assess, pursue, and then kill the prey. These actions of a predator are known as the foraging cycle. The search involves finding the right kind of prey.
For example, a wolf will not search for a very oversized animal such as buffalo, rather its preference will be a smaller animal such as moose.
This is because it uses its forelegs to capture and eat the prey and its forelegs are not very large or strong. Thus there is a positive correlation between the size of prey and types of predators. Once the prey is searched, the predator can assess either wait for it or pursue it. It also depends on the nature of the predator and the density of prey.
Of course, a plant will not pursue a fly. Predators use different methods of hunting. One of the methods is to capture the prey. There are several capturing techniques that different predators use. The techniques can involve ambush lions, panthers, and other carnivorous animals use this method , ballistic interception such as a frog catches a fly passing nearby with a sudden jerk of its sticky tongue , and pursuit chasing.
A predator blindly following the haphazardly moving prey will lose it eventually. The best technique the predator uses is parallel navigation where every move of the prey brings it closer to the predator.
Some predators camouflage before the actual pursuit. This helps them to be as close to the prey as possible. Thus minimum pursuit may be required. Contrary to high-speed pursuit done by lions, tigers, cats, etc. In such kinds of pursuits, the predator chases the prey for long distances at slow speed.
The chase may linger for hours. The African dog is the best example of such a predator. It follows its prey for many miles at a relatively slow speed. Hunting in a group is known as group pursuit predators. Lions and wolves show such behavior. Such pursuit can help capture and handle a larger prey. After capturing the prey, the predator has to handle its prey for eating. This is the fight of predator versus prey where the predator wants to eat while the prey wants to escape.
The predators can kill the prey or sometimes eat alive. Eventually, every continent of the planet had its own variety of mammalian organisms and their own unique evolutionary chain and direction.
Learn more about the early mammals that roamed the Earth alongside other organisms, such as reptiles, fish, and birds Darwin's Finches are an example of natural selection in action. They are an excellent example of the way species' gene pools have adapted in order for long term survival via their offspring. See this tutorial for more elaborate info on natural selection as exemplified by Darwin's finches
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