Science
Related: About this forumFish shoots down prey with super-powered jet
Katherine Harmon
25 October 2012
With a juicy insect dinner perched on a leaf above the water, what is a hungry little archer fish down below to do? Knock it down with a super-powered, super-precise jet of water that packs six times the power the fish could generate with its own muscles, according to new findings published online October 24 in PLoS ONE.
The stunning spitting power of the amazing archer fish (Toxotes jaculatrix) was first described in the 18th century. The creature lives in mostly in mangrove forests and estuaries where insects are prevalentabove water, that is. And these tasty treats are not easily knocked off of the plants that hang over the archer fishs territory. The insects, such as grasshoppers, can hang on with a force some 10 times their own body weight.
So the archer fish has developed an impressive strategy for fetching food that not many other fish can reach. Its water jet can target and dislodge a single insect so that it falls into the water for the fish to eat.
Just how the fish manages to do thisand in less than a secondhad remained a mystery. Many scientists figured that the source must be a special organ in the fishs body. The origin of the effectiveness of the jet squirted by the archer fish has been searched for inside of the fish for nearly 250 years, Alberto Vailati, a physicist at the University of Milan and co-author of the new paper, said in a prepared statement.
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http://www.nature.com/news/fish-shoots-down-prey-with-super-powered-jet-1.11668
2on2u
(1,843 posts)themselves from drone attacks. Interesting article, thanks for posting. What freaks me out is HOW did they come by this technique? What are they reading? Amazing stuff, truly amazing stuff.