Sea Lamprey Research Paper

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The sea lamprey is born from an egg and they typically spend the first 3 to 5 years of their life in a blind larval form, living in the silt and sand on the bottom of slower moving streams. Once they are ready to transform into a juvenile sea lamprey, their eyes and mouth form (New York State Department of Environmental Conservation 2015). The eyes of the lamprey undergo two metamorphoses during its life. The first metamorphosis occurs after its transformation from a larva to a parasitic juvenile lamprey. The eye contains a pigment called rhodopsin (Wald 1957) which helps the lamprey see better in low light conditions (Genetics Home Reference 2013). Rhodopsin is a pigment that is generally found in marine and land vertebrates. This is