Yes, many fish species can swim backwards.

Particularly fish with an electric sense swim backwards to scan their surroundings.

Moray eels, triggerfish, pufferfish, butterfly fish, angel fish, fusiliers, barracuda, parrot fish, clown fish, trumpet fish are just a few.

Moray eels utilize a flexible body and fin movement to swim backwards. Others like trigger fish use their dorsal and anal fins to swim in either direction.

Trumpet fish have small transparent dorsal and anal fins that enable them to swim both backward and forward. They use these fins to hover virtually motionless near corals and rocky ledges, waiting for the perfect moment. They use this to stealthily stalk prey.

Let’s look at the ones that can’t.

While most fish can swim backwards to some degree, tuna have a more difficult time and are not known for their backward swimming.

Mantas and sharks are among fish that have difficulty swimming backwards due to their physical structure and mechanics of locomotion. While they can move in any direction, including upside down their anatomical features make backwards movement challenging.

Specially the endangered mantas have a huge problem with mooring lines. As their eyes are on the side of their heads they have difficulties to see thin mooring lines and swim into them. As they can’t swim backwards, to get away they do a backward flip and instead of freeing themselves they just get entangled even further. With their loop they hitch the mooring line around their head fin which makes it even tighter and impossible to get away. The manta dies tragically of asphyxiation as they need to swim constantly to be able to breathe. Researchers with the Manta Trust have come up with an easy solution by attaching cable ties to the mooring lines to make them more visible to the mantas!

Photo & graphics credit to Manta Trust

mantas can’t swim backwards

attach cable ties to buoy lines