Ph.D. student writes BDN article on sea lampreys

The Bangor Daily News published Zachary T. Wood’s outdoors article about sea lampreys. Wood is a Ph.D. student in the ecology and environmental sciences program at the University of Maine. In the article, “What you should know if you see this toothed monster in a Maine river,” Wood described the long, eel-like creatures that use their teeth to attach to fish to extract blood and body fluids. Adult lampreys, some up to three feet long, spend their lives at sea and move up large rivers like the Penobscot in late spring to breed, according to the article. “At no point in their freshwater lives are lampreys in Maine a risk to us or our fish,” Wood writes. “As adult lampreys move into freshwater to breed, they lose their digestive system, tooth enamel and vision. Any lamprey that makes it to Bangor is equipped only to swim and breed.”