Lamprey fish on the River Sid

A very good place to look for ‘rivers in Devon’ is, of course, the Devon Wildlife Trust – and at the top of their search is a piece on river lamprey:

The river lamprey is a primitive, jawless fish, with a round, sucker-mouth which it uses to attach to other fish to feed from them. Adults live in the sea and return to freshwater to spawn. 

Distribution- Widespread, but rare.

Unfortunately, due to the ‘primitive look’ of this ancient fish, the media indulges somewhat in stories, such as last August’s drama when a Devon fisherman found ‘vampire fish’ in River Exe – or, as the Sun would have it, horrifying metre-long blood-sucking ‘vampire fish’ found by stunned UK fisherman.

More reasonable is the response and report from Ed Dolphin after he found brook lamprey in one of the Sid’s tributaries last September:

Also found in one of the Sid’s tributaries during electrofishing were the incredible brook lamprey. A quick google search for ‘brook lamprey mouth’ will give you some slightly more graphic pictures of these primitive fish… But don’t be alarmed; these creatures- like many of the less cute and cuddly ones- are just as important for a thriving ecosystem.

As also recorded on these pages when there was some serious surveying of fish along the Sid with electro-fishing last summer.

Finally, from the River Devon in Scotland, a piece from spring 2021 on searching for the brook lamprey – a refugee from evolution:

It is a refugee from the embrace of evolution, a prehistoric sliver of life that occurs in our rivers and burns, and which in spring makes a brief annual appearance to spawn.

It is the brook lamprey, and for the last week or so, I have regularly ventured down to the River Devon in Clackmannanshire to seek out these intriguing eel-like creatures. Technically they are not true fish, since they possess no jaws, and represent some of the most primitive vertebrates alive today, being over 360 million years old.

Although my efforts have been fruitless so far this year, last spring I managed to catch an individual in a side-pool of the Devon, gently scooping it out the water with cupped hands. It was about four inches long and as thin as a piece of cord…

Brook Lamprey (Lampetra planeri) Underwater UK – YouTube