A sea lamprey moves up the River Taw to spawn.
A warm and sunny afternoon spent logging natural history from the Tarka Trail just out of Barnstaple ended on a high note indeed. Having stopped to admire a resplendent drake shelduck feeding alongside its smaller mate by a channel of shallow water - it being low tide time - my attention was diverted by movement 20 metres upstream. Intermittent thrashes in barely its own depth of water was what appeared to be a conger eel. Lifting my binocular and seeing that the marine creature bore a mottled back and, to each end orange-yellow colouration, this first thought was immediately banished. Inwardly sprang the words - lamprey, a sea lamprey!
Sea lamprey: a 500 million years ancestry
With camera case and binocular held aloft I carefully slide down the concrete embankment and after a few tentative steps blithely advanced out toward the waters-edge. Even here the mud-bed remained firm. Without further ado I sploshed out to photograph the impressive specimen slowly making its way upriver to spawning grounds. Now at my very feet lay the link to the fossil Agnatha, the earliest (jawless and cartilaginous) fishes of our oceans...
Almost fifty years have elapsed since my boyhood sightings of lampreys in the wild. Those also had been in the waters of the River Taw, at Umberleigh. Summers spent wading or swimming in the cold clear waters - yet to be severely fouled - sometimes resulted in a glimpse of Lampetra fluviatilis the River Lamprey: once or twice these being seen attached to the flank of one kind of fish or another. (The versed "Derby-Boughs" of that same period were luckier than I, noting in the River Yeo adjacent to where the Silver Leat housing estate now stands, the movement upstream of salmon and sea trout and, yes, sea lampreys ).
But here now was the ultimate view of a petromyon marinus, a specimen the length and girth of my arm. Its colouration, the size and configuration of the two dorsal fins, the seven gill slits to each side, the large eyes and the single nostril on the upper surface of the head were effortlessly registered. Only the downward facing mouthpart, or sucker, containing row on row of teeth used in the rasping away of scaled flank and flesh remained, to the greater part, hidden. Uncasing the camera I fired off several frames for later scrutiny and, I hoped, a selective few good enough to grace a page of the North Devon Gazette!
One of several Henry Willliamson books in my collection is Salar The Salmon. It is an inspirational work and one I often delve into, rejoicing in its imagery. Here on the river-bed I was sharply aware of Henry's tale for Chapter 5 is titled Lamprey and in it Salar encounters Petromyzin or Stone-sucker. And Petromyzin's relation Myxine, 'the glutinous hag of the Two Rivers'. A group even stranger than lampreys are Hagfish...
FACTS
There are three species of lamprey in British waters. Sea Lamprey Petromyzon marinus, River Lamprey Lampetra fluviatilis and Brook Lamprey Lampetra planeri.
Ammocoetes. There is a larval stage in the development of lampreys. This tadpole-like larva, remaining burrowed in a silt-bed for between 3 to 7 years before metamorphosing into true adult form, was once thought to be a distinct species, thus dubbed Ammocoetes.
Anadromous. A word describing fish such as lampreys and salmon that migrate from salt water to fresh water to spawn - and invariably to expire thereafter...
Through the middle ages and later lamprey pie was highly regarded by the royal courts. In 1135 King Henry 1 (fourth son of Willliam the Conqueror ) died in Normany from, reputedly, a surfeit of Lampreys! The City of Gloucester, in token of their loyalty to the royal family annually presented a lamprey pie to the reigning sovereign, a tradition ended in 1836 for reasons of costs! Lamprey remains a culinary experience in parts of Europe with Portugal favouring the Petromyzon marinus.
Contact Stewart Beer at: stewart.naturalist@btinternet.com
• Stewart’s anthology An Exaltation of Skylarks, now with four colour plates added, is published by SMH Books ISBN 978-0-9512619-7-2. It can be ordered from all good bookshops, or directly from www.smh-books.co.uk