Animal of the Week: Sea Lamprey
Hey, Walter Reed students! Sorry for the continuous delay, but here we are now with the “Demogorgon of the sea”: The Sea Lamprey! We nicknamed this fish because of the layers and layers of teeth that resemble the monstrous creature from the well-known tv series, Stranger Things. The picture above is a less-petrifying example since it doesn’t show the mouth. We don’t wanna scare people, but if you’re really curious to see what they actually look like, there are plenty of pictures on the internet.
Even though eels look very similar to the Sea Lamprey, it’s actually a fish. Like we mentioned before, the mouth is the most noticeable trait. It has about 150 tiny cone-shaped teeth in it. The Sea Lamprey’s bones are made of cartilage and it is green in coloration.
This fish is actually a parasite, and uses a certain method to eat. The mouth is a sucker and this allows it to cling onto their prey. Their teeth dig into the fish’s scales to reach the flesh and produces an enzyme that is similar to a mosquito’s. This stops the prey’s blood from clotting so they can get more blood for their meal. This method isn’t the most pleasant, but fish and other animals have learned to defend themselves from them. Since the Sea Lamprey only suck cold-blooded animals, it’s really unlikely for humans to be harmed from these leech-like creatures. Some of their prey include, brown trout, sturgeon, lake whitefish, lake trout, catfish, burbot, etc.
These fish have been around for about 340 million years! They evolved with their prey, so neither of them had a real advantage against the other. That was until the Sea Lamprey somehow traveled from their natural home, the Atlantic Ocean, to the Great Lakes. They were first noticed there in 1835. This might not seem like a problem, except the fish there hadn’t developed any defenses against this parasite, and with no predators to prevent the spike in Lamprey, the population just grew and grew. The fish were often killed from the wound the predators bites inflicted. All of this ravaged the fish population and fishing did not go well for people at the Great lakes.
Thank you for reading. Stay tuned for more articles, and we hope to see you next week! This is Reanna and Zoe logging off!
Zoe Weirauch :D '23
Reanna Lee ;) '23