"Predating" can also mean "dating earlier than": see wiktionary:predate.

In ecology

Ecology

Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...

, predation describes a biological interaction

Biological interaction

Biological interactions are the effects organisms in a community have on one another. In the natural world no organism exists in absolute isolation, and thus every organism must interact with the environment and other organisms...

 where a predator (an organism that is hunting) feeds on its prey (the organism that is attacked). Predators may or may not kill their prey prior to feeding

Feeding

Feeding is the process by which organisms, typically animals, obtain food. Terminology often uses either the suffix -vore from Latin vorare, meaning 'to devour', or phagy, from Greek φαγειν, meaning 'to eat'.-Evolutionary history:...

 on them, but the act of predation always results in the death of its prey and the eventual absorption of the prey's tissue through consumption.