What the spitting archerfish might tell us about small-brain intelligence

The archerfish can spit water with remarkable accuracy at targets up to six feet away, giving it the evolutionarily advantageous ability to hunt prey on land from the water. Even more intriguing is the idea that archerfish can recognise faces and use water as a tool, making them part of an extremely small – but apparently growing – club of animals with a particular sort of intelligence. Informed by a study published in Nature in 2016, this short video from Deep Look probes what the archerfish can tell us about the increasingly dubious link between brain size and intelligence. Read more about the video at KQED Science.