Unidan, AKA Ben Eisenkop, is an ecosystem ecologist who first rose to fame (infamy?) on Reddit by popping up in posts across the site, answering any queries and concepts pertaining to biology and ecology. Eisenkop will be a columnist for Upvoted, where he’ll be spotlighting a new creature every week.

For Bizarre Beasts, I always feel I should pick some really weird-looking animal, you know? Still, I always get a fun rush when I find something super innocuous-looking that has some incredibly bizarre behavior. This week, I’m rubbing my hands in anticipation of people clicking on a relatively boring-looking fish.

The archerfish are a family of fish that are very small, both in taxonomic breadth and literal size. The taxonomic family only contains a single genus and within that genus, only seven species. Living in the tropical waters surrounding areas of India and the Philippines, archerfish go about their lives within the flooded roots of mangrove forests, stands of trees that typically span the interface between fresh and salt water. The fish are relatively humdrum, as I mentioned before, with most members coming in at only a couple inches in length. But their appearance isn’t what is remarkable about these fish—it’s their main skill.

Archerfish, as the name implies, are avid bowlers archers. Their accuracy is unparalleled, especially for a fish! Archerfish take in water, close their gills to increase pressure, and then expel it in a bolt of H 2 O. The water then arcs through the air and lands, nearly without fail, onto their prey: insects. When the water rocks the unprepared insects, they lose their grip on the mangrove branches and dramatically fall into their watery graves where the archerfish awaits them. The archerfish gulps down its prey without a second thought.

What’s truly astonishing about the archerfish is just how much they need to account for in their shots. Archerfish don’t shoot their projectile from above the water’s surface, they shoot from underneath to remain inconspicuous to their prey. This means they shoot from an increased distance, which is no problem for a fish that is able to spit up to 5 meters away and shoot accurately from 2 meters away! The archerfish must also account for refraction between the air and water surface, and the ballistic drop of the water spurt! Simply incredible. Here’s a video from Nat Geo Wild’s World’s Deadliest showing the archerfish in action: