the.com/lamprey
a jawless tube of teeth that's been horrifying fish since before the dinosaurs
means An eel-like jawless fish that latches onto other fish with a round, tooth-ringed sucker mouth to feed on their blood and flesh.
from From Old French 'lamproie,' from Medieval Latin 'lampreda.' The popular story splits this into Latin 'lambere' (to lick) plus 'petra' (stone) — a 'stone-licker,' for the way lampreys cling to rocks — but that tidy tale is probably a later folk reworking of an older, murkier word whose true roots are uncertain.
- older than
- predates dinosaurs by 200 million years
- feeding style
- rasps a hole and drinks blood alive
- royal demise
- King Henry I allegedly died from eating too many
- no jaws
- mouth is a circular saw of teeth
- comeback kid
- survived all five mass extinctions
sea lamprey — invasive species that devastated great lakes fish populations, reducing lake trout by 90% by the 1950s
river lamprey — common in european rivers like the rhine, historically a delicacy in medieval england and still eaten in portugal
petromyzon marinus — atlantic lamprey species that migrates between ocean and freshwater rivers across north america and europe