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Essay, 4 pages (850 words)

Lamprey

Facts About The Lamprey The Lamprey, also known as the Vampire Fish, is known to terrorize the other fish, such as the lake trout in the North America Great Lakes. According to Sea Grant, they are best known for there ” toothed, funnel-like sucking mouth and rasping tongue which is used to bore into the flesh of other fishes to feed on their body fluids. ” The government is now starting to notice the negative effect the Lampreys are having on the other fish in the North America Great Lakes and now want to control the fast growing population of the Lamprey.

The Lampreys are aquatic vertebrates native to he Atlantic Ocean, use external fertilization and their populations are now being controlled by the agencies in the United States and Canada. A better understanding of the Lamprey, its habitats, life cycle, and control measures shows that the Lamprey needs to be controlled since it may cause damage to an ecosystem. The Sea Lampreys (Photometry Marinas) are aquatic vertebrates that resemble eels, but unlike eels, they feed on large fish. They are also primitive Jailers fish; they have a large sucking disk for a mouth and a well-developed sense of smell.

Lampreys also o not contain any bones but only cartilage. Their bodies have smooth, ceaseless skin, two dorsal fins, no lateral line, no vertebrates, and no paired fins. As larvae, a Lamprey is recorded to be about 6 inches long and an adult can be up to 18-24 inches in length. It is a dangerous fish because it is built to kill or prey on larger fish with poor defenses. Research as shown that when a Lamprey has migrated into a different area it may negatively affect the ecosystem. Lampreys are found only in Mediterranean and North Atlantic, in the coastal seas off the North East USA, Nova Scotia, southern

Greenland, the I-J, Ireland and Scandinavia per to Marine. They are able to live in both salt and fresh waters, such as The Great Lakes, rivers, and steams. Lamprey can swim up canals that are connected to the Atlantic Ocean and live in them. The Lampreys presence may cause a change in the ecosystem by creating a decline in the population of the local fish in that area due to the Lampreys large appetite. We must not institute control measures for population growth of the Lamprey and pay close attention to the local fish and habitats that may be impacted.

It is important to study the Lampreys life cycle to understand how to control its population growth. The Sea Lamprey reproduces using external fertilization and lay about 35, 000-100, 000 eggs for fertilization. While spawning the female and male align so that the cloacae openings are close together but the fertilization is external. The male will then fertilize the laid eggs of the female. There are times when a pair of Lampreys my have assistance from a second female. The second female would assists by creating the reed (nest) where the eggs are put.

After spawning, the adult Lampreys die from their intestines deteriorating and bacteria attacking their bodies. When the larvae have hatched from their eggs they have no teeth, are blind and have little resemblance to adult Lamprey. A Lamprey would spend most of its life in its larval form. Since the Lamprey stay in larvae form for a long period of time this helps the agencies have time to kill them since it is more difficult to control them when they are adults. Current government control measures have been difficult but more research maybe added to better control this dangerous fish.

To control the lamprey, state, federal, provincial and tribal agencies in the United States and Canada participate in the Integrated Management of Sea Lamprey (AIMS). There have been different methods that are used to help control the population of Lamprey. One is the use of 3- theoretically-4-nitrogen (TFH) that is added to the water to kill the larval Lampreys, but this also causes local fish to die. There was also the use of electrical barriers, which helped prevent Lampreys from spawning, but it was abandoned for he use of chemical treatment instead.

But it has been noted that the Lamprey may create more challenges for population control measures since they may develop immunity to the TFH or learn to spawn in different area such as stream mouths. Regardless of which control measure is used, researchers have agreed that the larvae has to be targeted since adults are difficult to control or kill. Sea Lamprey live a complex life cycle in the Atlantic Ocean where it has adapted for their parasitic life. Our recent efforts to control and get to know this fish has lead to ore public awareness about the potential dangers to the marine ecosystem.

One example is The North America Great Lakes where the trout population has been on the decline due to the introduction of the Lamprey in that area. This was due too canal opening, which connected this area with the Atlantic Ocean. The Lamprey unexpectedly migrated into this area. The Lamprey have not shown much evidence that they mayhelp an ecosystembut that they will destroy the local fish thus supporting the reasons why they should be controlled. Since Lampreys are such brutal fish they need to be controlled.

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