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Contrary to popular belief that jellyfishes swim by exerting a downward pressure and push themselves forward, scientists in an experiment have astonishingly found that jellyfishes and lampreys, pull themselves forward by sucking in the water or creating a low pressure region ahead of them. The study which was published in the journal Nature Communications, claimed that the swimming trick is in fact a suction-based propulsion technique and not the other way round as previously assumed.

John Dabiri, a study researcher and a professor of civil and environmental engineering and of mechanical engineering at the University of Stanford was reportedly quoted as saying: "It confounds all our assumptions. But our experiments show that jellyfish and lampreys actually suck water toward themselves to move forward instead of pushing against the water behind them, as had been previously supposed.", reports Science Daily.

According to Tech Times, in a bid to study the movements of these aquatic wonders, researchers observed the sea creatures in a water tank. Microscopic glass beads that measured merely around 10 micrometers across, were placed in the water. Along with the glass beads, cameras and lasers were fitted in the tank to track the movement of the beads as the sea animals swam around. Both the jellyfish and the lamprey were found to be sucking in the water ahead of them, through this experiment.