Sea robins are weird animals who use leg-like appendages to walk on the seafloor. Now, scientists know why they evolved those limbs.

In the grand scheme of fish evolution, it makes sense that sea robins would evolve legs that can taste, said Neil Shubin, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago who was not involved in the studies. Catfish and goatfish, similarly, have taste receptors on whisker-like barbels that stick out of their head.

Some types of “walking” fish called sea robins can use their taste bud-covered legs to detect prey buried beneath the sandy covering of the seafloor.