Lecture series in Ecology and Environmental Research WS 2011/12

Prey catching in archerfish (Beutefang beim Schützenfisch)

Eingeladen durch Prof. Bettina Engelbrecht

Archerfish impress with one of nature's most remarkable hunting techniques: they down aerial prey with a precisely aimed jet of water fired over considerable distance. I will briefly discuss ecological constraints for being successful with this hunting technique and argue, that a large number of abilities must come packaged with their hunting technique. I will briefly introduce some of them and then will focus on a behavior in which a surprisingly small network of a few neurons performs a complex decision at outstanding speed.

These findings open up exciting new approaches on how decision-making networks are tuned to environmental laws.

• Announcement (pdf)