Page 100 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #02

Q&A Q&A

WHAT Q FRESHWATER FISH

IS IT? How do archerfish
use water as a

weapon?

A Woe betide any insect perching on a leafy
frond near the water’s edge if an archerfish lurks
nearby. This predator can strike its prey with a
mouthful of water from up to three metres away,
Pretty in pink:
a fungus fit even compensating for the way light bends as
for fairies. it crosses the waterline and adjusting its aim to
make a direct hit.
Exactly how the archerfish water pistol works
New Caledonia in the South Pacific
Fungus: Marc Ducousso/Cirad; archerfish: Photo Researchers/FLPA; geese: Robin Chittenden/Alamy
has until recently remained a mystery. It was
is most famous for its tool-using
long assumed to involve an inbuilt catapult, but
crows, but the islands are teeming
nobody could find such a mechanism. Then,
with other endemic species, including
in 2012, a team of Italian scientists discovered
the flightless, heron-like kagu, and
that archerfish don’t rely on catapults or muscle
Amborella, the sole surviving species
power, but instead manipulate the water itself.
of the oldest lineage of flowering plants
An archerfish spits out streams of water by
on Earth. It is also home to contenders
pushing its tongue along a groove in the roof
for the largest living fern, pigeon, gecko
of its mouth. By pushing harder towards the
and skink. And then there’s this little
end of the stream, the droplets further
beauty. Podoserpula miranda might be
back collide with those ahead, merging
just the thing for fairies to serve scones
into larger blobs. So instead of
on if it wasn’t for the smell of radishes.
sprinkling their prey with a
It was only discovered in 2009 and has
gentle mist, archerfish throw
come to be known as the Barbie pagoda The secret to
powerful water bombs
fungus, for obvious reasons. The the archerfish’s
that speed up as they
specific name translates from the shooting skill lies
approach their target. not in anatomy,
Latin as “she is to be admired.”
Helen Scales but physics.
Stuart Blackman
Q BRITISH BIRDS
Do wintering A Britain – particularly Norfolk – hosts more While the grazing of cereals and pasture
than 80 per cent of the world population of does bring the birds into conflict with farmers,
pink-footed pink-footed geese during the winter months. utilising sugar beet is seen as positive. The
Numbers have increased dramatically over
crop is harvested from September to the end
geese cause recent years, largely due to reduced hunting of December, and it is the cut tops and other
pressure, but also to the availability of
remains that the geese eat. If the beet fields
problems for agricultural crops. are left unploughed through the winter, the
pinkfoots can ‘clear up’ any leftovers and are
As with other geese species, the past few
decades have seen pinkfoots switch from less likely to move onto more precious crops –
farmers? feeding in wetlands to grazing on farmlands, so both geese and farmers benefit.
Mike Toms
with a particular fondness for sugar beet tops.
Approximately
50,000 pink-footed
geese wintered in
the UK in the 1960s.
Today, there are
more than 200,000.