Many people are familiar with sea horses, those little fish with horselike heads and nicely curled tails that usually swim about with their heads up. Because of the rather peculiar structure of the sea horse, this method of swimming does not seem so strange as it would for a fish with a more conventional shape.
But are there any fish that stand on their tails? Yes, Shrimpfish or needlefish are the fish that stands on their tail which looks very unusual for a fish to do that.
Shrimp-fish or needlefish, as they are sometimes called, are small minnow-like fish with long snouts, found in the Indian Ocean. These fish have the habit of swimming in small schools, their tails down and their long snouts pointing upward.
They have been seen to swim in the usual fishlike horizontal position, but when they do so, they are upside down.
There is a catfish found in the Nile River that looks very much like other catfish unless one happens to see it swimming belly side up near the surface, a position not adopted by any other fish unless it is sick or dead.