Talk:Lamprey

hi

They are found only in temperate regions, except for Africa- that's why they're not in tropical regions? How does this make sence?

The answer to the above question is that the northern and southern ends of Africa are not in the tropics (outside the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, respectively).

minor edit

I edited the piece on effects of lamprocide. Harmful effects on other species have been documented 01:56, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I deleted 'horrifying'; no basis, subjective, pointless.Dmccabe

confusion about classification

This article cites a book about modern fish saying that classifies lampreys as the sole member of the class Cephalaspidomorphi, so the article for that class now redirects to the lamprey article. But the name Cephalaspidomorphi was coined to include a group of fossil armored fish, the cephalaspids, which in turn was named for the genus Cephalaspis. The cephalaspids are usually regarded as a synonym or subgroup of the Osteostraci, which is entirely extinct. Some other orders of fossil jawless fish have also been included in the Cephalaspidomorphi.

Now, it may be that lampreys are the sole surviving cephalaspidomorphs, since their anatomy of the lamprey brain resembles that preserved in fossil skulls of Osteostracans. (The exact relations of lampreys to other jawless fish are disputed, see below.) But it makes no sense to have a separate article about cephalaspids (Osteostraci) while assuming that Cephalaspidomorphi is synonymous with lampreys, which may be the sole surviving twig of that group.

The article on Agnatha compounds the confusion by separately listing as subgroups the Osteostraci (which does not mention it belongs to Cephalaspidomorphi), Cephalaspidomorphi (which redirects to lampreys), and Petromyzontidae (which rightly redirects to lampreys).

Since some workers do not regard the lampreys as close relatives of the cephalaspids (see the Tree of Life link below) and reject their classification as Cephalaspidomorphi, it might be best to classify them as Petromyzontiformes within the Vertebrata and leave it at that for now. I'll try to clear up these articles over the next few days, but I hope someone more familiar with fossil fish will jump in.

Here are some external links:

Cephal-odd 14:53, 21 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The fairly recent idea that the living agnaths are NOT sister taxa (based on morphological cladistics) has been strongly refuted by several recent molecular phylogenies -- this really should be revised. I guess because there are a bunch of out of date textbooks out there, this is a problem in many places on Wikipedia. For over a decade the data has been rolling in showing that hagfish and lamprey are clearly extant sister taxa. See Mallatt, J., and J. Sullivan. 1998. (1998). "28S and 18S ribosomal DNA sequences support the monophyly of lampreys and hagfishes.". Molecular Biology and Evolution 15: 1706-1718. and DeLarbre Christiane ; Gallut Cyril ; Barriel Veronique ; Janvier Philippe ; Gachelin Gabriel (2002). "Complete mitochondrial DNA of the hagfish, Eptatretus burgeri: The comparative analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequences strongly supports the cyclostome monophyly.". Molecular phylogenetics and evolution 22 (2): 184-192.

76.212.89.246 (talk) 00:27, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Older Fossil Found

Scientists recently discovered a fossil about three times older than the one mentioned in the article.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061025185208.htm

I'll let someone else edit the article. I'm not good at pretentious encyclopedia prose. The article cited may have some other useful ionfo. as well pertaining to this article.

-Adam S.

Article says: "A few months later, in the 27 October issue of Nature, an even older fossil lamprey, dated 360 Mya, [...]" What is "360 Mya"? Tempshill 19:15, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- MYA is short for "million years ago", as is stated in the linked article. The page has been editied with this clerification. 67.103.18.138 19:55, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

vandalism

It appears we have someone who is not fond of these beasties and is taking it out on the page. I apologize if any of my reverting has removed anything useful, but there were too many pieces to fix by editing so I simply saved an older version back to the main page.Dmccabe 03:19, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Does it have predators?

Article should answer the question: Do lampreys have predators? Either in the larval stage or as adults? Tempshill 19:24, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

harmful?

OK if they can't attack what does that do to the story of Vedius Pollio and Augustus, I would like to hear more about the frequency of attacks, results and if that has any relationship to the truth of the story. 4.227.154.188 20:50, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can they attack humans in the water in any way?

They could. However, it's highly unlikely. “There's really no risk of sea lamprey attacking humans. The risk would almost be negligible for a sea lamprey to encounter a person and then for that sea lamprey to actually attach to someone that's out there swimming in Lake Superior.” [1] Steviedpeele 02:55, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not true, me and my brother hunt lampreys in rivers where I live, and we both got bitten by one. They hurt really bad. They just suck on you and don't let go, and not to leave out the fact how they have razor sharp teeth!

Question - Do they kill the fish they feed on? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.199.31.89 (talk) 00:21, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dorsal Fin?

The physical description says it has no dorsal fin, but the diagram shows two dorsal fins, labeled as dorsal fins. Maybe it should say there's no ... uh ... whatever the belly fin is called. Caudal fin?

Good catch. I changed it to "paired" fins. — Dave (Talk | contribs) 20:05, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Larval Stage

More should be written about the larval stage of lampreys. A picture would be good too. --Savant13 13:08, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Food and drink Tagging

This article talk page was automatically added with {{WikiProject Food and drink}} banner as it falls under Category:Food or one of its subcategories. If you find this addition an error, Kindly undo the changes and update the inappropriate categories if needed. The bot was instructed to tagg these articles upon consenus from WikiProject Food and drink. You can find the related request for tagging here . Maximum and careful attention was done to avoid any wrongly tagging any categories , but mistakes may happen... If you have concerns , please inform on the project talk page -- TinucherianBot (talk) 21:20, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

External Link Defunct

Lamprey as food, including recipes >>> http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_arch/8_10_96/food.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.242.220.169 (talk) 11:56, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed it, thanks for making note of it. carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 00:10, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Taxonomy disputed

The setting of parentheses around many authors' names looks highly suspect to me. "Lampetra fluviatilis (Linnaeus, 1758)"? Hmmmmm.

Also, it is always better to move author data to the species account if it exists. Or to the genus page, if there is no species page. This helps avoid such problems with multiple badly-maintained and incongruent listings of taxonomic data. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 21:07, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Immune system

A recent article in Nature further highlights the importance of Lempreys as evolutionary interesting animals in respect to the development of the immune system: http://www.nature.com/nri/journal/v9/n7/full/nri2590.html Interferon-lambda (talk) 11:18, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Another minor edit

I removed the following from the "Literature" section owing to 1) poor grammar, 2) off-topic (just because something looks to the viewer like a lamprey doesn't mean that it deserves a mention), and 3) seems like the author just wanted to use the term "shitweasel" and put it online.

Stephen King's novel Dreamcatcher has alien creatures that look and move like Lampreys, which are nicknamed in the novel, shitweasels.

Huanohk (talk) 18:45, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]