"Priggen" - so would the old native of Bremen call those peculiar animals, which at a first glance look like eels, but then again, if you take a closer look at them, they turn out to be completely different organisms. Lampreys do not belong to fish, not at all to the vertebrates, since they do not have any skeleton, but rather a tube, which provides them with stability. Instead of a jaw, they have a round suckerlike mouth filled with rows of teeth, which helps them suck onto the animals of prey, where they feed on their body fluids.

About 30 cm long lampreys spend the most of their life in the coastal marine areas and migrate from the sea into the rivers upwards for reproduction. The adult animals spawn in large shoals in April in rivers and streams of barbel and grayling regions. The eggs are laid over the sand and fine gravel. The larvae spend the first 3 to 5 years in clean water sediments with the light flow-through. After this time the young fish migrate to the coastal marine areas.

Historically, the river lampreys existed in almost all larger water courses in the river catchment area of Weser and Werra. Due to the intensive water use accompanied by its pollution and trail lining, the populations have decreased dramatically. This species is exterminated today in the river catchment system of Werra. There are some smaller populations existing in the area of Aller, which show positive development. Continuity optimization represents therefore an important measure, besides the improvement of the water quality, in order to allow for the dissemination of the species in the catchment area of Weser to Werra. River lamprey was the fish of the year 1988.

Foto: Frank Schreiber