Along with Dr. Hong Y. Yan of the T.H. Morgan School of Biology, University of Kentucky, we have been studying the feeding behavior of this fish using videotape techniques. We found that the fish feeds monocularly and it only feeds on targets at the water surface. It only captures a target from within 1 cm of an eye. It is fairly clear that the sensory information involved with feeding is a combination of vision and lateral line with visual input under bright illumination acting in an inhibitory manner. Either vision alone or lateral line alone are sufficient for feeding purposes, but the combination in low illumination provides a more favorable sensory environment.
Bright light seems to inhibit the feeding process.
Although the fish will jump at targets in the air, it does not jump at the targets. It jumps at the image of the target in Snell's window. The figure at the left just below demonstrates that the fish does not jump at the hanging cricket in air. Rather, as you can see in the image below, the fish jumps at the image of the cricket in Snell's window. The small arrows in frame 4 identify the hanging cricket.