Most members of the family are ambush predators: they stay motionless in a camouflaged position, and then strike suddenly at passing prey. They wrap their body round the prey and squeeze. To kill its prey, the python squeezes it to death, then swallows it whole. Larger pythons can prey on animals as large as a full-grown deer. In Africa, there are pythons that eat gazelles. Most of their prey is much smaller than that. Pythons may take several days or even weeks to fully digest prey.