To find adult lamprey we first looked for these. The picture above is a nest that the adults construct. the small pebbles are at the downstream end and protect the eggs as they develop. Once they are big enough they wash out of the nest and must look for a place to burrow further downstream.
Here is one of the adult lamprey I collected. You can see the eye is already cloudy and the body is starting to wear out. Besides spawning adults are done with their lives. The animals I collected today probably had no more than a couple of days at most. Some of the females would have died tonight.
Same lamprey but with a closeup of my foot to give an idea of scale. These animals were each about 1 pound.
Not a lamprey but a cool sight today. Lots of swallowtail butterflies were puddling in different locations around the stream.
Same butterflies but a slightly different shot.
And finally, a video in case you don't have any lampreys to watch near you.
Video annoyingly tiny? Head on over to youtube, there you can find all my "amazing" lamprey videos.
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