Extraordinary creatures: archerfish

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Archerfish (Toxotes spp.) are widespread in the Indo-Pacific across north Sri Lanka, Vanuatu, Thailand and Australia. The fish grow up to 40 cm long and are often found in groups in brackish mangrove swamps and coastal areas, although they can also inhabit freshwater. They can live for up to 25 years in captivity. True to their name, archerfish squirt jets of water into the air at insects and other prey to knock them from their perches. The race is then on to collect the precious morsel before another fish snaps it up. Stefan Schuster has been studying the extraordinary hunting technique of these remarkable fish for almost three decades. He tells Journal of Experimental Biology how archerfish compensate for their distorted view of the world above the water's surface and actively shape the jet of water they squirt from their mouths to maximize the impact from any direction, and then calculate the exact position where their victim will fall.