This Scary-Looking Fish Is Making A Comeback In England For The First Time Since 1800s

Take a trip down to a UK river and you’ll probably see brown water and empty crisp packets. But be warned, there’s something dark and creepy happening in there. It’s the return of the lamprey.

The lamprey is a prehistoric fish that has recently been seen in some English rivers for the first time since the 1800s. The snake-like creatures came around 200 million years before the dinosaurs and can boast to be the world’s oldest living vertebrates.

Apparently they used to be pretty common in our waterways, but they were hit hard by the Industrial Revolution as the construction of mills and weirs blocked their migration.

They aren’t the cutest, it has to be said. Lamprey have a circular disk of razor sharp teeth that look like they would take your hand right off. They have already claimed a famous scalp, a royal one, no less. The lamprey is blamed for the death if King Henry I, although it wasn’t their teeth that did it, it was overindulgence. He basically ate too many of them - delicious.

They were always regarded as a royal delicacy, and Tyrion Lannister has a bit of a taste for them in Game of Thrones. You won’t get the chance to indulge in a lamprey pie yourself, however, as they are now protected and it will cost you two years behind bars.

Simon Toms, fisheries expert at the Environment Agency, said:

“For the last two hundred years, some rivers have not been capable of supporting lamprey species as a result of water quality, poor habitat and manmade barriers. Now that water quality has improved and some of these barriers have been removed we are seeing lampreys return.

“These are fascinating fish, living fossils, that have a special place in the history and traditions of this country, and we hope that with a helping hand from us they will be able to thrive in England’s rivers once again.”

Here’s a video about people fishing Lamprey in the US, where they call them ‘the vampires of the deep’.