Anyone who sees this vicious fish for the first time, the body will involuntarily tighten.....
The creature was found off the coast of Margaret Norrie Point State Park in Stratsburg, New York. Who would have thought that such a creepy thing would swim near the park's lake?
According to educators at the Local Environmental Center in New York, the creature was found in a fishing net thrown down from the coastline. Although this "fish" looks terrible and unreal, Ben knows exactly what kind of creature it is.
Sea lamprey
This creepy "little guy" is known as the sea lamprey. They are a parasitic fish species, usually native to the Atlantic Ocean. To survive, lampreys attach suction cups to other fish and suck their blood. They are one of the oldest fish species on Earth, having not evolved into new forms for more than 340 million years and surviving at least four major extinctions.
The sea lamprey is unlike any other fish in that it does not have a jaw or any other skeletal structure. Their bodies are basically skeletons made of cartilage. They will cling to their prey with the mouth of a suction cup and bite into it with their sharp teeth.
A lady was holding it firmly with her hand
Negative effects
Lamprey eels are a very large threat to freshwater fish. Each fish is able to "kill" about 40 pounds of fish during a 12-18 month growth period. Since the invasion of the Great Lakes by sea lampreys in the 1960s, the number of trout caught in the lake has dropped from 15 million pounds to 300,000 pounds in a 20-year period.
The Great Lakes Fisheries Commission said it would work to control the lamprey. They usually use special "eel killers" in the adult stage of lamprey eels to maintain the reproductive life of other freshwater fish.
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