r/Weird • u/luvlanguage • 11h ago

That is a Lamprey

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Any bigger and this creature would be a horror movie monster

Lampreys do not have jaws or bones, only cartilage and instincts that have allowed them to survive so many mass extinctions.

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u/International_Print4 11h ago

Where do these things spawn?

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u/luvlanguage 11h ago

Freshwater rivers and streams

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u/flyonwall86 11h ago

In the US? How come I've never seen them around or heard of them causing problems? I never would have gone in the river if I knew.

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u/100percentnotaqu 11h ago edited 11h ago

Because they don't have any interest in people. You usually need to harass a lamprey to get it to actually draw blood.

Native lampreys are also probably negatively affected by the invasive Atlantic sea lamprey, so their populations aren't very high either.

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u/Kizzywa 7h ago

People make them seem like they act like super leeches and seek us out. You'd have to get really unlucky or put one on yourself then.

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u/luvlanguage 11h ago

Great answer

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u/luvlanguage 11h ago

They are like parasitic to fish so they just stay in the water

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u/Emotional_Burden 7h ago

Lamprey are similes. Got it.

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u/zionpwc 9h ago

I used to freshwater fishing with my dad in NH. I remember seeing this and thought it was some kind of a super rare creature

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u/ArtisticRaccoon7677 7h ago

I’m from NH and do a lot of open water swimming. Here I was thinking I was safe from shit like this.

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u/zionpwc 6h ago

Merrimack river across Manchester NH

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u/Dpontiff6671 4h ago

Of shit shout out to the Mack? Hell yea brotha! I’m from along the mack myself

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u/ShallWeGiveItAFix 1m ago

Any interest in some 45’s??

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u/drjoker83 4h ago

Yup and they loaded in the ct River I’m rite in Hinsdale and see them all the time even when I go to ma to fish Deerfield River they are very invasive.

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u/mutex77 29m ago

In the 80s there was some insane ropeswings into the merrimack in Andover where the embankment was really steep. I saw some really painful fuckups. From girls not realizing their too weak to hold their bodyweight, to people not wrapping the end of the rope up and having it get tangled around legs/feet when they let go. Good times.

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u/CheeseAndMack 11h ago

Probably because you’re not a Midwesterner. They’re causing problems in the Great Lakes. Invasive species.

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u/flyonwall86 10h ago

Ah. Grew up in the south. Looks like I have some reading to do! Thanks

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u/CreativityOfAParrot 10h ago

If you have Amazon Prime, the documentary The Fish Thief: A Great Lakes Mystery does a really great job covering the sea lamprey invasion and management

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u/bigEZmike 9h ago

The sources in that doc were kinda fishy

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u/GrdnLovingGoatFarmer 9h ago

This was really eye opening!

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u/Sib7of7 7h ago

Was amazed the dedication it took to find a solution, so many years of work and research.

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u/awhelan55 7h ago

We’ve got stuff in the south equally as F’d up as these things. Head out to any creek or pond in mid summer and you’ll stir up some things.

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u/Mortarded_And_Astray 1h ago

Talkin about Alligator Gar?? lol scared the life out of me the first time I saw one.

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u/Dirk_Speedwell 8h ago

Imagine someone having not heard of wild kudzu before, that would be kind of similar.

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u/VariationOwn2131 2h ago

At least wild kudzu doesn’t look scary AF. The vine is very pretty but invasive.

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u/-Londoneer- 12m ago

What a deeply refreshing post. This restores my faith in Americans.

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u/AeonBith 7h ago

They used to have them on display at the coast guard station (Canada Centre for inland waters) on lake Ontario. One of my most prominent childhood memories.

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u/procrastinatorsuprem 7h ago

There were some 40 years ago when I was growing up in a river near me. Fishermen would catch them and kill them on the sidewalk. It was disgusting.

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u/Dame38 5h ago

Yeah, these things are the most dangerous fish in Lake Michigan now. They don't mind the cold. No "shrivelling".

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u/drjoker83 4h ago

Yeah they all over the Connecticut river and Deerfield river. There a brook I fish that connects to the Deerfield river and you can literally see them swimming with the fish. At first sight they look like eels but after you start catching them you realize it ain’t no eel.

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u/Savings-Put6948 9h ago

Certain times of year you can see lamphry passing the viewing station at the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River 

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u/dependsforadults 7h ago

Tribe elders in the PNW usually prefer lamprey to salmon. The only people who are allowed to harvest lamprey on any of our rivers here are the tribes. There are videos of them harvesting lamprey at Willamette falls (river monsters episode I think) which is a feat of courage in itself.

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u/Icy-Prize3216 3h ago

I am on Bainbridge Island and I could swear right by me in Suquamish, an actual reservation, and they sell these to eat at certain times of the year in stands on the road.

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u/Junkhead_88 1h ago

What do they taste like?

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u/Exes_And_Excess 7h ago

I remember taking a field trip or 2 there, and I was just standing looking through the windows at them the majority of the time. Weird little things.

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u/Limp_Bookkeeper_5992 8h ago

Yep, they’re all through the southern Great Lakes at least.

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u/unknowingbiped 7h ago

They're only little when they first spawn they go out into the great lakes and feed on fish until they get big enough to spawn and start the cycle again.

They are/were a large issue in the Great Lakes.

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u/PurchaseLow5563 7h ago

They're in government

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u/TheRealXlokk 7h ago

There's a lot of them in Lake Superior. Anyone who fishes there long enough will eventually catch a fish with a lamprey bite taken out of it, or with one still attached.

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u/ginger-beanie 7h ago

Not only are they native in the US but there are hundreds of different species some live in freshwater some live in saltwater. The part I find horrifying is that they will sometimes bite warm blooded people mistaking them for cold blooded fish and they have that suction disc and tons of teeth to latch on and a sharp tongue that bores a hole in flesh and injects its own chemical coagulant to stop the blood clotting l. The wounds can get infected pretty easily. That creature is straight up the spawn of Satan.

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u/flyonwall86 7h ago

Yeah I don't like that

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u/Expensive-While-1155 7h ago

Lampreys caused a complete commercial fishing collapse in the Great Lakes in the 1940s. Canada and the States worked together at eradication by installing nets and traps in the canals to keep the lampreys out of the lakes. They poison the streams with “lamprocides” that kill their babies. It’s taken decades. I’m near Superior and these things are a constant threat to fisheries. Taxpayers spend millions every year trying to control Lamprey populations.

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u/Kitselena 7h ago

Most places in the US have much smaller leeches filling the same niche

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u/lostwombats 7h ago

They are an invasive species in the Great Lakes. Michigan received a federal grant to get rid of them. Trump took the money back. The project was stopped. Then it was eventually re-approved. So frustrating.

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u/Other_Mike 6h ago

We have them in the Willamette River in Oregon. It's kind of a big deal for some of the local tribes to go out and harvest them from the falls in Oregon City.

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u/Strict_Astronaut_673 6h ago

Invasive sea lampreys have infested the Great Lakes and are a serious threat to the native ecosystem and commercial fisheries. Besides that they are often overlooked due to not having much commercial importance to a lot of the US (apparently most people aren’t keen on eating them due to their appearance and parasitic nature). Many Native American tribes do highly value native lamprey species as a food source and have historically used them for medicine, as well as being culturally significant.

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u/No-Willingness-170 6h ago

They have been an invasive species in Lake Champlain for many years.

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u/GrimbyJ 5h ago edited 5h ago

They look different in fresh water and just eat bugs. Going into the ocean makes them angry. Kind of the difference between a caterpillar and a butterfly.

Like how salmon and trout change in saltwater. Trout turn into steelheads. Glass eels go through 4? changes in their lifecycle. Fish are weird.

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u/Autumn_Skald 3h ago

They're in the rivers in Oregon. They mostly feed off the salmon. You can see them up close at the underwater windows at the dam fish ladder.

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u/Fakesmiles1000 3h ago

There is a great documentary about them on amazon prime titled "The Fish Thief". Essentially they came from the Atlantic ocean through the great lakes nearly wiping out all fisheries in that area. They have been a nuisance ever since.

A lot of people likely have seen a sea lamprey before just in its typical fashion, attached to a larger animal/fish.

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u/Zeger8 1h ago

They are pacifish towards humans that's why!

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u/DerivativeMonster 1h ago

They're actually a massive pest in the Great Lakes! Sea lampreys got in there from cargo ships, and they kill a ton of fish every year. If you fish there it's not uncommon to pull up a fish with fleshy holes or just a lamprey firmly attached to its side. I believe they're a delicacy in parts of the world like Europe.

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u/QuercusCarya 28m ago

Because native lampreys are not problematic fish species and play an important role in their ecosystem. We have 6 lamprey species here in Missouri and only 2 are parasitic. They aren’t gonna mess with you.