An ancient animal in the form of a blood-sucking eel, with a mouth full of swirling teeth, made its first appearance in October 2021, after 20 years of searching.
Sean Blocksidge, a tour guide in Margaret River, Australia, heard a local legend about lampreys migrating to a local waterfall. He said no one had seen him in a decade.
Lampreys, jawless eel-like creatures, evolved millions of years ago and have a reputation for drinking the blood of their prey.
"Looking for lampreys is like looking for a yeti or Loch Ness monster," Sean said as quoted by the Mirror, Thursday (16/6/2022).
After approximately 20 years of searching, he found six lampreys at once. At first he couldn't believe the moment was real.
"It was kind of a surreal moment. I've heard so many stories from old people about how lampreys used to migrate in the thousands up the falls. But we hadn't seen them in Margaret River for over a decade," he said.
Sean finds the creature at Yalgardup Falls, where he and his tour group pause to discuss Aboriginal and European history.
"I looked down into the water and it looked like a long blue tube in shallow water. It seemed a bit strange because we very rarely find garbage in the river," he said.
He then descended into the water for a closer look. But he found there were more other similar creatures in the place, trying to climb up the waterfall.
"It turned out to be the marsupial lamprey I've been looking for for the last 20 years. The tourist groups were delighted too. They quickly realized the importance of seeing these kinds of creatures once we explained how rare they are," he enthusiastically says.
The marsupial lamprey spends its early life in fresh water, before migrating downstream to the ocean where it spends its adult life eating other fish. They then return to the river to lay their eggs and die.
The lamprey looked like an eel, and had a monstrous ancient-looking mouth filled with gripping teeth.
"But on the whole they are very beautiful creatures with colorful blue eyes, clearly visible gills, and long, strong slender bodies," said Sean.
Lampreys are at risk of extinction due to climate change and increasing salinity in the waters where they breed.
"They are living dinosaurs and have been around for more than 200 million years, but they were really affected by climate change. Our river system has dried up more than 20% in the last two decades and this is thought to have affected their population," he said.
"Interestingly, this year was a very wet winter and the lampreys clearly knew it was a good year to migrate to this river system again."
