Pacific Lamprey smolt, Lampetra tridentata

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Pacific Lamprey smolt, Lampetra tridentata
Pacific Lamprey smolt, Lampetra tridentata

My slide notes say this was collected from Bull Creek in Humboldt Redwoods State Park, a tributary to the South Fork Eel River. I was doing an assessment of the fish population there, we captured lamprey, California roach, sculpin and juvenile steelhead. There was very little known about lamprey in 1987, so the assumption that this is a Pacific lamprey could be incorrect. Lamprey have an interesting life-history, spending several years in a a blind, larval stage filter feeding while living in the fine river=bed sediments they then transform to this "smolt" form before migrating to the ocean. Once in the ocean they become parasitic, attaching with their sucker mouths and using their rasping tongue to bore through the skin then feed off the blood and tissue they digest while attached. Several years later they return to freshwater rivers as adults to spawn starting the entire process all over again.

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Taken on: September 16, 1987
Sets appears in:   • California Freshwater Fishes, Native and Introduced Fishes that can be found in California   
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