It was a week to remember for zookeeper Jarco Havermans of Ecomare. At the beginning of this week he collected a seal from the Texel beach, and yesterday the animal caretaker found a sea lamprey. And that is at least a special find.
The sea lamprey is a fish, but ‘a very strange fish’, is how Jarco Havermans describes the animal. He explains that the beast is a parasitic species, one that separated from the rest of the vertebrates a long time ago. They occurred as far back as the Silurian – a time scale long, long ago – more than 400 million years ago. Even before there were fish with jaws.
“The sea lamprey also has no lower jaw, it has a disc like a mouth full of teeth,” Havermans explains enthusiastically. Sea lampreys use their striking mouth to attack other sea creatures to suck the blood out. It does this, for example, with fish and cetaceans. Small animals usually do not survive the bite of the sea lamprey.
Rare
Sea lampreys are relatively rare in the Netherlands and are mainly found in the spring, when they migrate from the sea to fresh water to spawn. The last time one was found was in 2017.
Ecomare already has a sea lamprey in its collection and also keeps it. Jarco’s find is carefully stored in the freezer and may eventually go to a museum. “If someone wants to add it to the collection, they should contact us,” concludes Havermans.
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