Hey Alexa, play Kate Bush 'Running Up That Hill.'

A creature that can only be explained as something that looks like a character out of Stranger Things was found in the Hudson River in Dutchess County.

Personally, any body of water is terrifying. You don't know what could be living beneath the murky currents. And now, thanks to the latest post from the Department of Environmental Conservation, I will never step foot into the Hudson River ever again.

The New York State DEC shared on Facebook that one of their DEC estuary educators, Ben Harris, caught 2 creepy-looking creatures. They write:

DEC estuary educator Ben Harris caught this two-foot sea lamprey with a cast net at the Norrie Point Environmental Center. Lamprey are jawless fishes that feed parasitically on larger fish using their round mouth ringed with hooked teeth. Good for the lamprey, not so good for the fish!
With this photo attached:
NYS DEC
NYS DEC
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What kind of bait was Ben using to catch such a creature?!

I digress.

So what exactly is a Sea Lamprey? The DEC explains on their website:

Lampreys are primitive fishes that spend their two-phase life cycles in streams and lakes in New York. These fish are easily recognized: they are jawless, elongate, lack scales, lack paired fins, and have seven pairs of gill openings. The larval state is spent as filter-feeding ammocoetes, with eyes covered with skin and no teeth, in sand or silt beds in streams. Adults metamorphose and emerge with functioning eyes and teeth in a disc-shaped mouth and migrate to lakes or the ocean.

So it's not a creature, it's an actual fish. Still terrifying.

Have you ever come in contact with a Sea Lamprey in the Hudson River?

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