Banded archerfish

The banded archerfish is one of the most amazing little sharpshooters in the animal world. It is a silver-white fish with bold black bars along its back, and it has a very special talent: it can shoot a jet of water right out of its mouth. By aiming carefully, it knocks insects off leaves and branches and straight down into the water, where it can gobble them up.

To fire its water gun, the archerfish presses its tongue against the roof of its mouth to make a little tube, then snaps its gill covers shut to squeeze the water out fast. Most archerfish can spit about 150 centimetres, and some of the bigger ones can hit a target 2 to 3 metres away. That is like you spitting water across a whole room and still hitting the spot you were aiming for!

Learning to aim so well takes practice. Young archerfish gather in small groups and shoot together, so at least one of them is likely to hit the target. Cleverly, they can even get better by watching other archerfish take their shots. Little by little, each fish becomes a more accurate sharpshooter.

Archerfish are not fussy eaters. As well as the insects they blast down, they nibble floating plants and snap up crustaceans and tiny fish under the water. Sometimes they even leap right out of the water to grab a snack from a low branch.

Banded archerfish live in warm, shallow waters across the Indo-Pacific and around northern Australia. Their favourite home is a mangrove estuary, where fresh river water mixes with salty sea water among the tangled roots. Their conservation status is Least Concern, although scientists do not yet have a clear worldwide population trend and local mangrove habitats still need looking after.