Lion and cub eating a Cape Buffalo.

Indian Python swallowing a full grown Chital deer at Mudumalai National Park.

In ecology, predation describes a relationship and actions between two creatures. A predator catches, attacks, and eats its prey. 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 and scavenger.