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| Lamprey, A Vampire in the Fish World |
Lamprey, A Vampire in the Fish World. Lamprey is the name for a kind of fish that is long like an eel. Despite their eel-like appearance, lampreys are not eels because they have many physical differences.
The first physical difference is seen in the head where the lamprey does not have a jaw like an eel, but rather has a disc-shaped mouth. The lamprey also has seven gill holes on each side of its body and a vulnerable inner skeleton, whereas eels do not.
Lamprey, A Vampire in the Fish World
Lampreys can be found in all tropical and subtropical freshwater around the world, except in Africa. Apart from fresh water, a small number of lamprey species can also be found on the coasts and high seas. There are about 43 species of lampreys known to man and all of them belong to the order Petromyzontiformes.
My own article this time will focus on the sea lamprey or in scientific language Petromyzon marinus, the largest species of lamprey in the world that is only found in the Atlantic Ocean.
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| Lamprey, A Vampire in the Fish World |
Now let's talk about the way the lamprey eats which earned it the nickname vampire. Lamprey lives by sucking the blood of other fish that are bigger than himself.
While eating, the lamprey first attaches its suction-like mouth to the skin of its victim, then bores a hole in the prey's skin with its tiny teeth and begins to suck its blood. Apart from eating the blood of other fish, some species of lamprey that live in fresh water also eat plankton.
Circle of life
Lampreys have an anadromous life cycle which means they spend most of their life in the sea, but go to fresh water to spawn.
When the breeding season arrives - which lasts from March to June for P. marinus species - adult lampreys migrate in large numbers to rivers.
Shortly after mating, the female lampreys will release three hundred thousand eggs into the basin in the riverbed that has been created by the male. After breeding, both lampreys will die.
The lamprey eggs then hatch into larvae that live hiding in the pile of material on the riverbed for the next 3 to 5 years. During this period, the eyes and suction mouth of the lamprey larva gradually develop.
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| Lamprey, A Vampire in the Fish World |
After these two organs are fully developed, young lampreys will go to the sea or lake and start consuming the blood of other fish as food. A lamprey of the P. marinus species is known to reach sexual maturity at the age of three and can reach a maximum size of one meter.
Lampreys have long been consumed by residents of Europe and East Asia as food. In the era of Ancient Rome and the Middle Ages, lampreys were considered the food of the elite because they were often consumed by the aristocrats of that era.
Besides being eaten, the benefits of lampreys for other humans are as material for brain research because the physical characteristics of lampreys seem primitive when compared to other vertebrate animals so that the lamprey's brain and nervous system are relatively simple.
Lampreys have not always been considered useful animals. In salmon farms, lampreys are considered pests because they often attack and suck the blood of the raised fish.
In North America, lampreys are also considered an invasive species because they often attack local commercial fish uncontrollably due to the absence of natural predators from lampreys there.
One of the many tried and tested ways to suppress the lamprey population in North America is to use lampriside, a poison that is only lethal to lampreys. By: Ochie
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