First sampling event of the year

And so it begins...The field season is upon us, and noticeably so with such high temperatures. Have a look at my selection of lamprey pictures from the Genesee River. Lampreys were everywhere when we sampled, they actually swam by us as we worked. The adults will be out for 1-2 more weeks before they die, but not before they spawn.

An animal from last year that we found this year! I was surprised we recaptured an animal after so long.

Here is another animal from last year, in fact this animal is from June of 2014, and it has literally not moved since then.

I had quite a bit of help this time out, John (an undergraduate at ESF) did anything and everything in preparing and marking the lamprey.

We found more injured and unusual ammocoetes than I have ever seen. Here is an ammocoete with an infection that resulted in tumors growing on it. Zoom in to see more. 

Here's John again, weighing lamprey as I prepare to mark them.

Here is the difference between the last year of the ammocoete's life. On the top is an ammocoete probably 1 year older than the ammocoete on the bottom, but note how fat it is. In the last year of life the ammocoetes stop growing and begin to put on weight so they can migrate and spawn. Next spring this animal will, if it survives, attempt to spawn and make its own little ammocoetes.

A view downstream of the shot I enticed facebook viewers with to come visits the blog.

We encountered at least 2 ammocoetes that had been bitten. You can see the little jaw marks and also the nice bit of ammocoete skin and gill that was removed when the predator grabbed the animal. Luckily, at least for now, the ammocoete survived the encounter. Whether it survives until latter in the summer we will have to wait to see.

Wednesday was cloudy and cool, but Thursday was bright, warm, and sunny. Here is a good view looking downstream. The plants are starting to grow, but you can still see the bridge from the stream at this point. By July the trees will all but cover the road.

John weighing yet another lamprey we collected.

Me marking up the last lamprey and pretending that I did all the work.

The lamprey processing station with many lampreys read to go and one on the scale. The animals are anesthetized in clove oil before we begin.