How to "merge" two intersecting vector images together in Illustrator

[MSMitch]

I am trying to comine two images, one an outline of a ball, the other a vector of a fingerprint. Want to clip of crop where the ball intesectes with the finger print so I'm left with a finger print with a cutout of the ball in it: 

[Monika Gause]

Expand all effects.

Select both and Pathfinder "Merge" from the pathfinder panel.

Then delete what you don't need.

[MSMitch · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the suggestion. The paths wouldn't work for the two images - but probably newbie user error. I cheated and opened them in Phostoshop and selected all the black and inverted the image, copied back to AI. Did the Image Trace and adjusted until I was happy with the effect and then Object > Expand so I could customize the final graphic colour: