Video: Archerfish shoots down prey with jet of water

Archerfish are expert marksmen. They spit jets of water into the air to fell flying insects with startling accuracy. Now it seems they fine-tune their jets to pack an extra punch.

The water jets made by archerfish can bring down prey, even small lizards perched on foliage, up to 2 metres above the surface of the water they live in. As well as being good shots, the fish alter the force of their blast to hit bigger targets harder.


Stefan Schuster of the University of Bayreuth in Germany trained nine banded archerfish (Toxotes jaculatrix) to spit at their prey in view of a high-speed video camera. They found that the back of the water jet catches up with the front just before it hits the unfortunate insect, ensuring that the force is concentrated into one hard whack.

The archerfish focus their jets by changing the shape of their mouth as they expel the water. They must be accurately gauging their prey’s distance from the water to ensure their jet coalesces at just the right height, says Schuster. If the jet became focused too early, it would probably fall apart in mid-air before hitting the prey.

Journal reference: Current Biology, DOI:10.1016/j.cub.2014.07.059