The specialist predator bacteria bdellovibrio-and-like organisms (BALOs) are highly valued for their potential applications in agriculture, industry and medicine, especially in the treatment of antibiotic-resistant pathogenic bacterial infections. However, many basic scientific questions about BALOs have been unclear in the past decades, which is the fundamental reason why this type of bacteria has not been effectively developed and utilized for the time being. Recently, many progresses have been made concerning their life cycle, predation mechanisms, resource distribution and diversity, and their applications in medicine, agriculture, or industry. Especially since the formal establishment of the phylum Bdellovibrionota in 2021, there has been an explosive growth in related research. This review will systematically review the previous advances of BALOs and highlight the recently reported outstanding achievements, such as the study of predation mechanism, to promote the understanding and further applications of the resources of BALOs and to guide the future research on BALOs.