Talk:Lamprey

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picture

could someone get a picture of a lamprey besides its mouth as a portrait pic? i admit it's freaky and cool, but that's not the aim for an encyclopedia entry.

Is this OK? --83.253.26.39 23:08, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Business Question

Sould Great Lakes lampreys be harvested and sold in SW Europe? --D. G. Borkowski

Lamprey mouth removed, because it makes some people feel bad in certain ways, to view it.

Locations

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]

This link discusses some predators: http://columbian.com/article/20090813/NEWS02/708139947/ Mactenchi (talk) 00:18, 31 August 2009 (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!

you are a person who is constantly exposed to lampreys and who also kills them. That increases the risk of attack immensely, like hunting bears significantly increases the odds of being attacked by one, or how kicking dogs increases the chance of being bitten by one. I am not surprised to hear that an animal that can defend itself will try to do so. What I would like to hear is whether a person that passes near a lamprey and doesn't harm it has any chance of being attacked. like whether they have a natural tendency to go for our yummy blood and will attack unprovoked.

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]

Indeed; there's plenty of good facts on this page, but there's no discussion of the life cycle. The page ammocoete merely redirects to Lamprey, yet Lamprey didn't even use the word until I worked it in. It should also discuss that at least some species are anadromous. --AHMartin (talk) 20:00, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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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]

Fishbase[2] has these taxa within parentheses. The list of synonyms there shows Linnaeus originally placed L. fluviatilis in the genus Petromyzon. This genus was later broken up into Lampetra and others. DGodfrey9189 (talk) 13:31, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Found this http://eurekamag.com/keyword/p/167/petromyzontidae-001.php it suggests the following phylogenetic sequence:

-Ichthyomyzon + Petromyzon

+-Caspiomyzon

+-Tetrapleurodon

+-Entosphenus

+-Lethenteron

+-Eudontomyzodon+Lampetra --Draco ignoramus sophomoricus (talk) 09:19, 6 December 2010 (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]

I noticed that this good article is missing one important thing

I first want to say that this article is long, detailed, and thorough - a credit to Wikipedia and Wikipedian. When I came here from parasitoid because I thought lampreys could possibly be linked to or mentioned in that page, I realized that it was missing one important thing: DIET

It has one sentence about how they feed, and one sentence about what they eat. I know they eat fish/fishparts, but other people who come here to learn about lampreys might not.

The " how " sentence just mentioned is "They feed on prey as adults by attaching their mouthparts to the target animal's body, then using their teeth to cut through surface tissues until they reach blood and body fluid." I see that and think "Cool! Vampire fish! Tell me more!" but the article never discusses it.

The " what " sentence just mentioned is "While lampreys are well known for those species which bore into the flesh of other fish to suck their blood, most species of lamprey are non-parasitic and never feed on other fish."

Would someone please add information about their diets.

Gatorgirl7563 (talk) 19:36, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Gatorgirl above. What do lampreys eat? At the beginning of the article it says: "While lampreys are well-known for those species which bore into the flesh of other fish to suck their blood, most species of lamprey are non-parasitic and never feed on other fish". But then later it only talks about how lamprey attach to fish and suck out their blood. What do all of the other lamprey eat, the majority of them that don't attach to fish and suck blood??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.30.116.234 (talk) 00:14, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As adults, the non-parasitic/non-predatory lamprey do not feed at all: they simply mate, then die. Hence the reason why the section on feeding does not focus on the non-parasitic/non-predatory species.--Mr Fink (talk) 00:29, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Lampreys, or morays?

Concerning the story of Vedius Pollio throwing his slave to the "lampreys" in his pond, or tank, I checked Seneca's text and I found not lampreys, but 'murenis obici iubebatur, quas ingentis in piscina continebat". A moray was also highly prized by the Romans as delicacy, an might indeed bleed the poor slave to death — and then eat it. Not being a Latinist proper, I would like someone more qualified than I am to clarify the matter.

And Jules Verne's isn't either an authority: his fights with creatures of the deep are as fantastic as Ahab's confrontation with the White Whale.

José Manuel Mota, Coimbra, Portugal

The Latin word is murena and it is debated whether it refers to lampreys or to eels. Given that several translations use lamprey, it's probably fine to leave the references in. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/wine/murenae.html Metalello (talk) 04:34, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sea monster

Wasn't there a folk belief that giant lampreys could attach themselves to ships and halt them? I think it was based on an etymology naupreda ("ship predator"). --Error (talk) 00:06, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Etymology

Actually, checking DCECH, I see that the etymology for Spanish wiktionary:lamprea is Late Latin naupreda, altered later to lampreda by the influence of lambere ("To lick"). Naupreda is first found in Polemius Silvius (5th C). Naupreda could come from navis + prehendere, because of the similarities between lampreys and remoras. Since the English etymology in the article is uncited, somebody should check what English etymologist say. --Error (talk) 00:17, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]