Roe Jen

I did not expect to tag animals on the Roe Jen this summer, but after working at another site where I thought I could get access to plenty of lamprey and having no luck I went to the park in Germantown.

A picture of the Roe Jen looking downstream.

And another of the bridge that runs through the middle of the park. The picture is taken from the beach/mowed area that allows easy access to the Roe Jen.

This damselfly (Calopteryx sp., the dusky wing damselfly) was out looking for prey and a mate.

Two pools that both held lamprey. The top one had about 30-50 animals, while the bottom one had just a couple.

A bag of marked lamprey ready to return to the pool from which they were captured, fully recovered and aching to go free.

Two images, both of the same animal. Here the animal has been marked, measured for length and weight and is ready to recover before being released. It has four marks on the body. The one above the head helps me determine if my tags are not blurring or losing color. The other three give the animal its unique code.

Dyke Creek

I began my research for this summer officially on Friday at Dyke Creek, a tributary of the Genesee River. My work this summer is to tag larval lamprey with non-toxic dyes so that I can identify them to individual when I recapture them. Below is a picture of number 907 (let's call him Booker S. Lamprey).

Hopefully I will find him/her again (I don't actually know the sex, to know I would have to kill the lamprey and I don't want to kill them). I released it and it quickly swam back into the sediment and disappeared from sight. It looks so calm out of the water because it was under anesthesia at the time of the picture.

Other lampreys preparing to get tagged below.

Good picture of the stream and habitat that these guys were living in when I found them. The orange flags mark where I sampled for the lamprey.

Another tagged lamprey, this one is harder to read in the light, but it is number 901. It is sitting on the inches scale. Immediately below it is the metric scale in cm's.

All of the lamprey I collected at this site are American brook lamprey (Lethenteron appendix), which are non-parasitic and native to New York. As I recapture individuals I will try to post before and after pictures. I will certainly make a big post about Booker if I recapture it.

Sea lamprey in the Delaware River

I had the opportunity to look for spawning sea lamprey in the Delaware River last week as I prepared to sample it this summer.

The image above is not of a lamprey of course, but of a dragonfly emerging into its adult form. This is a Gomphidae (family), and there was a large hatch while I was there. The rocks and nearby vegetation was covered in these guys. Bad news for any insect smaller than they. All dragonflies are accomplished and voracious predators.

Here is a great picture of a large lamprey nest. You can easily see all the cleared areas that the lamprey have prepared and the cleaned stones at the base of the nest. I did not see any adults in the nest when I came. They may have moved on or been scared off by something before I arrived. The nest is about 2-3 feet across.

The video above is of two lamprey preparing to spawn. They move stones and remove sand from the area in which the eggs will be laid. These two were alone, sometimes you can find large numbers of adults all digging nests nearby one another.

All in all a pretty interesting trip. Hopefully more great finds to come this summer in the Delaware!