A species of fish has an unusual way of eating — it thrusts its jaw out and downwards to nab prey on land.
Krijn Michel at the University of Antwerp in Belgium and his colleagues took high-speed video and made 3D reconstructions of the largescale four-eyed fish (Anableps anableps), which feeds from mudbanks. They found that the fish extends and rotates its upper jaw towards the ground while it turns its lower jaw downwards at a right angle, allowing it to clamp its mouth around its prey.
This mechanism differs from those of other land-feeding fish, which either curl their whole bodies downwards or pivot on their fins towards prey.
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Fish launches jaw to feed on land. Nature 526, 8 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/526008c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/526008c