The world's nearly extinct Archer fish has been successfully bred in Thailand, the first such breeding in the world, Thai fisheries department has announced.

Some 500 Archer fishes have been successfully bred and raised by the Fresh Water Fisheries Research and Development Center in the northern Nakhon Sawan province, and the fishes were now 40 days old with a length of about two centimeters, Sitdhi Boonyaratpalin, the department's director-general, was quoted by The Nation newspaper on Wednesday as saying.

The tiny fish easily die of shock if there is the slightest change in their environment.

Starting the breeding program in 2002, the center failed to keep the creature alive for more than a week in all its previous attempts.

The successful batch was bred in April, which the center intends to use as stock to help conserve the endangered species.

The bred fish will be released into the lake in the province in the hope they could multiply.

The Archer fish won the name because of its habit of hanging below the surface of water and spitting streams of water to catch insects. It is capable of accurately shooting steams up to 1.5 meters into the air and detecting a up-water object of more than a meter.

Source: Xinhua