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.
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