Archerfish

This fish has a unique hunting technique: like a water pistol, it shoots its prey down from plants growing on the bank with a jet of water.

Characteristics

What does the archer fish look like?

Archerfish form a family of their own and belong to the order of the perch-like fish. Their body is elongated and compressed at the sides, the head pulled out to a point so that the back and forehead form an almost straight line. The slanting, upward-pointing mouth is striking.

The eyes are large and mobile. The dorsal fin is far back just before the caudal fin, the pectoral fins are very well developed. Archerfish are 20 to 24 centimeters long. Males and females look the same, they can hardly be distinguished.

Where does the archerfish live?

Archerfish are at home in the tropical seas of Asia. They are found in the Red Sea, on the coasts of India, China, Thailand, Australia and the Philippines. Archerfish prefer coastal regions. They stay mainly in the area of ​​estuaries and in the water of the mangrove forests. The water is shallow there and the temperature and salinity vary greatly with high and low tide.

The animals have adapted to the living conditions in the brackish water – that’s what the mixture of salt and fresh water in estuaries and mangrove forests is called.

What species of archerfish are there?

The archerfish family includes only five different species. The best-known species is the archerfish Toxotes jaculatrix. It is frequently introduced to us and kept in aquariums because it is so fascinating to observe its hunting technique in the aquarium. Other species include the Lorentz archerfish, the small-scaled archerfish and the large-scaled archerfish. They all differ mainly in color and markings as well as in the number of fin rays.

How old does the archerfish get?

Archerfish can live up to twelve years.

Behave

How does the archerfish live?

Archerfish are quite numerous in their habitats. However, because the food supply is often scarce, they are quite belligerent towards their conspecifics and try to drive each other away. However, they are peaceful towards other fish. Archerfish usually stay just below the water surface and feed on insects that have fallen to the water surface. They have also developed a particularly sophisticated hunting technique:

With a sharp jet of water, they shoot flies, grasshoppers, ants and other insects from leaves and twigs on the bank. To do this, they set their bodies upright, press their tongues against the upper palatine groove in their mouths and press the water out of their slightly open mouths by squeezing their gill covers. Due to the steep jet shooting out of the water, the prey insects fall almost exactly in front of the archerfish’s mouth, so that it can eat them immediately.

The conspecifics have no time to snatch the foreign prey. Many archerfish are so accurate that they can hit their prey from up to four meters away. Researchers have found that they learn to distinguish between real prey and dummies very quickly. They also quickly learn that large animals look smaller the farther away they are, and small prey appear larger at close range.

Friends and foes of the archerfish

Archerfish can fall prey to other predators among marine fish.

How does the archerfish reproduce?

To this day, almost nothing is known about the reproduction of archer fish. Even in aquariums, the animals have not yet been induced to reproduce, so all captive animals are wild-caught fish.

Care

What does the archerfish eat?

Archerfish feed almost exclusively on insects, which they collect from the water surface or shoot from leaves and twigs on the bank with their special hunting technique. Archerfish should only be kept in very small groups, otherwise they will compete with each other.

Attitude of the archerfish

But they would also be unhappy on their own, because the animals are schooling fish. They can live in fresh water, salt water or in brackish water – they tolerate the latter best. The water temperature must be 25-30° Celsius. Archerfish need a lot of space, so the tank should be at least two meters long. It is only filled up to a third with water, so the water is not very deep. Then the pool is set up with mangrove roots. This corresponds to the natural living conditions. If you let insects fly above the water surface, you can also observe the hunting behavior of archer fish in the aquarium.

Care plan

Archer fish only accept living food and must therefore only be fed with living insects in the aquarium.