Plant cells have organelles called platelets which enable photosynthesis of food.
Predation
Catching food
Predators may be mostly static, lying in wait for prey to come to them. Or, they may actively move and entrap or chase down food.
Baiting
Predators may attract food organisms to a certain location for entrapment. Eg: brightly colored flowers of the venus fly trap, the attractive tail of the rattle-snake.
Overcoming a single prey
A prey is usually overcome using asphyxiation, bleeding, cutting, crushing or poison. Sometimes, this is done by extending cell boundaries around the prey, as in the case of amoeba and protozoa. Powerful instruments like claws, jaws and teeth - even special tools - overcome resistance from the prey organism and kill it.
Catching multiple individuals
Intelligent strategies like corralling with bubbles or sand from a sea bottom are observed among marine mammal populations.
Filter feeding is a popular strategy, in which media containing prey organisms is channelled through a special organ. Eg: Baleen whales filter-feeding on krill.
Or food may be grown. Eg: agriculture by humans, cultivation of fungi by leaf-cutter ants. Tools such as webs are used for trapping food.
Protecting the food
Food captured may be taken away by another predator. So, some predators are motivated to drag/ hide their food away. Eg: Cheetas drag their food up tall trees.
Digesting the food
Sometimes food is ingested into a digestive organ. Before doing so, the large organisms may be broken into small pieces (chewed), or it may be forced inside, as in snakes.
In ingesting the food, it may either be drawn to the mouth using appendages like hands, feet or tentacles, or the mouth may be drawn to it.
Otherwise, the food may be digested externally and the nutrients later sucked in. Eg: sea stars, some snakes and spiders.
Camoflage adaptations
It is advantageous for both predator and prey to blend into the environment so as to not fall into each others’ notice.
Anti-predation adaptations
Camouflage is considered elsewhere.
Toxicity: Many animals and plants develop toxicity/ poison to defend themselves against predators.
Standing-out adaptations: To advertise their toxicity to potential predators, poisonous animals may be brightly colored.
Behaviors
Safety in numbers strategy can confound predators’ ability to track down a single individual. Eg: schools of coral fish, herds of herbivores in grasslands.
More complex social adaptations are described in a separate chapter.
Symbiosis
As genes evolve interacting with one another, organisms coevolve to form mutually beneficial relationships. Example: A huge fraction (80%) of the cells in the human body are microbes in the gut, which help digest food efficiently.