Posted on 06/03/2015 9:46:19 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
FAIRBANKS—Adult Arctic lampreys have fallen from the sky four times this week in Fairbanks, including at the Value Village parking lot, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
That's unusual for a fish that's seldom seen in the water up here. The Arctic lamprey is a roughly foot-long eel-like fish with a no jaw and a nightmarish looking set of teeth.
This week, a live one was spotted at the Value Village on Airport Way and saved in a bucket, according to a post on the department's Facebook page (on.fb.me/1G7su0B). There have been three additional reports of lampreys out of water this week, one on someone's lawn.
Gulls are probably to blame for picking up and dropping the lampreys, according to the post. The fish spawn in the Chena River. But because lampreys aren't well understood, the department encourages people to call 459-7206 if they spot more.
Unlike invasive sea lampreys that have caused trouble in the Lower 48, the Arctic lamprey is native to Alaska.
Arctic lampreys have an anadromous lifecycle like salmon. They're born along muddy riverbanks, travel to the ocean and return to fresh water to spawn. The juvenile fish look like worms and are easy to find in riverbanks. In the Lower Yukon River subsistence fishermen harvest adult lampreys returning up the river in November, according to an article Fish and Game educator Erik Anderson wrote about the species in 2007 (1.usa.gov/1H2jF96). Less is known about adult lampreys in the Fairbanks area. They're not easily caught with a typical net or with a fishing hook.
Cover your hovercraft unless you want them filled with eels.
Evolution in action?
Don’t know about eels, but raining frogs or tadpoles is supposed to be a sign of impending war.
Should’ve dropped them in a volcano. Then they could have had lava lampreys.
To who? Africans who run screaming into their huts when an eclipse happens.
“Don’t know about eels, but raining frogs or tadpoles is supposed to be a sign of impending war.”
It is actually a sign of a tornado. If a tornado passes over a pond it will suck all the water and everything in the water up into the clouds. When the tornadic activity subsides the items that were sucked up will rain down to earth.
Eelnado?
Lava lampreys! Cracked me up!
They look like alien socks.
They do.
True, that is the scientific answer, but my mom’s uncle told me maybe 55 years ago when I read about this in a comic book, that there were cultures which saw raining frogs as a sign of coming hostilities. Old wives tale? Sure but it must have had some smidgen of fact.
Reminder to all to donate $5 to the FReepathon.
They misspelled "Snek."
LOL
Must be awful when a tornado passes over a dairy farm.
I have no idea what that is but I want one.
Oh, that was terrible. (Of course, now I have to share it with my husband.)
Sharknado!
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