(intense electronic music)
- Are they hungry?
They definitely look hungry.
So if you guys are ready,
I'm Coyote Peterson,
and I'm about to enter the bite zone with the sea lamprey.
This is it.
(intense electronic music continues)
(Coyote screams)
(film reeling)
(intense tribal music)
(ominous electronic music)
The Great Lakes have been invaded,
and their fish are facing an inescapable attack
that threatens to decimate their populations.
Like aliens in a Hollywood horror film,
these slime-covered parasitic predators
have squirmed their way in,
and are on the hunt for blood.
My mission is to find out whether or not
these invaders have a taste for humans.
And the only way to find out
is to let myself be Eaten Alive by sea lamprey.
To perform this nightmare of an experiment,
I have traveled to Millersburg, Michigan,
where I will be working in conjunction
with The Great Lakes Fishery Commission,
and US Geological Survey's jointly-managed
Hammond Bay Biological Station.
These organizations are on the forefront
of Great Lakes research,
control of invasive species,
and restoration of native fish.
The Great Lakes are home
to five different lamprey species,
four native,
and one invasive.
And as my luck would have it,
you can clearly see that this invader
is also the biggest.
Sea lamprey originally entered The Great Lakes
from the Atlantic Ocean
through a series of manmade shipping canals
in the mid 1800s.
Taking advantage of these human constructed waterways,
they eventually invaded all five of The Great Lakes.
Without any predators or population control at the time,
sea lamprey numbers exploded,
and by the early 1960s,
the fishing industry was devastated,
taking the yearly Great Lakes harvest
from 15 million pounds of fish
to a near 300,000 pounds of fish.
This is a perfect example of how destructive
an invasive species can be.
And while it's clear that they are a threat to fish,
do they pose a threat to humans?
It's a beautiful sunny morning,
and it feels like the perfect day
for an Eaten Alive episode here
on the Brave Wilderness channel.
Now, before me is a 50-gallon aquarium
filled with close to 100 sea lamprey.
I know what you guys are all thinking.
"Coyote, hold on.
Hold on a second.
Are you telling me you're going to place your arms
into this aquarium
with these fish that will suction onto you,
maybe shred your skin,
and then drink your blood and bodily fluids?"
Yeah, guys,
that's exactly what we want to try to figure out today.
Now, what exactly is a sea lamprey?
Is it an eel?
Is it a fish?
Is it an alien?
Well, I can tell you this much.
They're certainly alien looking,
but no, they are not aliens.
And while their body structure
may really make them look like eels,
they're not eels either.
They are in fact fish,
a primitive species of fish.
The lineage of these creatures dates back 340 million years,
which means that they were here
before the time of dinosaurs,
and they survived beyond the dinosaurs.
In fact, they've survived for extinction events.
How crazy is that?
Now, what makes them a primitive fish?
That's a great question.
They're not like other fishes.
They don't have any bones in their body,
but in fact, their structure is made out of cartilage.
They don't have a swim bladder.
They don't have any pairs of fins.
And they don't even have proper jaws.
They're considered parasitic predators.
I may say perfectly designed parasitic predators,
and they primarily feast upon fish.
And the thing that's most unique
about these primitive creatures
is in fact their mouth structure.
So let's crouch down here for a second,
and get down beneath the water surface,
and take a closer look.
You'll see the way that they are suctioning to the glass.
One of the most unique aspects
is what's known as the sectorial disk.
They don't actually have jaws,
like I stated earlier,
but they have the ability to suction onto different things.
Glass is a perfect surface.
They can also hold onto rocks.
But when they're searching for their prey,
which, of course, is fish,
they're capable of suctioning on.
And then let me paint you a really horrific story.
This is almost like a Hollywood B film.
When the suction onto the side of the fish,
their mouth is malleable.
And within that malleable mouth,
they have close to 150 cone-shaped needle-sharp teeth.
Those teeth anchor into place.
And then right in the center of their mouth
is this razor sharp rasping tongue.
They rub that tongue over the scales,
through them,
into the skin,
and eventually into the fish's flesh,
where they then drink the blood and the bodily fluids.
If you're a fish swimming around The Great Lakes,
and you get hooked up to with the lamprey,
you were alive when they begin to eat you.
So, you know,
you gotta have a little bit of respect
for these primitive creatures.
These perfectly designed parasitic predators
have taken a massive toll on the native fish species.
In fact,
during the lifetime of an individual lamprey,
they can kill up to 40 pounds of fish.
For every seven fish attacked by sea lamprey,
only a single one manages to survive.
Their top sense is their ability to smell their prey.
They don't have really great eyesight.
In fact, they're usually most active at night.
But when I place my arms down into the water,
they're definitely gonna smell any scent
coming off of my flesh.
It's fair to say that I'm not a fish,
but I'm certainly full of nice, warm, delicious blood.
Are they hungry?
They definitely look hungry.
So if you guys are ready,
I'm Coyote Peterson,
and I'm about to enter the bite zone
with the sea lamprey.
Here we go.
One,
two,
this is it.
Three.
(intense electronic music)
Ooh, that water is cold.
Oh, oh, one just rubbed right up against me.
Oh, boy. They are slimy.
Now, what I'm gonna try to do
is keep my hands and arms in there.
Oh!
Ooh, they're squirming around.
Wow, they are slimy.
I'm gonna try to keep my arms in here
for at least a minute and 30 seconds.
Oh, they're going right towards my arms.
Man, this brings some flashbacks of the leeches,
when I did Eaten Alive by leeches.
They swam around my arms,
brushing up against them,
just like this.
Eventually found me,
suctioned on,
and induced a bite.
They're swimming back and forth.
They definitely detect that I'm here.
Ooh, that is a very, very eerie feeling,
slimy bodies rubbing up against me.
I don't even want to look down.
Right now I'm just thinking about those sectorial disks
lashing out to my arms,
those teeth grappling,
and then that raspy tongue cutting into my skin.
But thus far,
they're really just swimming around me.
It's interesting, because the warm blood in my body,
I feel like would definitely be able to be detected.
Then again, you have to think about the fact
that fish are cold blooded.
So maybe warm blood is not something
that they would necessarily be after.
All right, we're gonna up the ante on me being bitten,
and I'm gonna actually push my arms
into the piles of lamprey.
Wow. That's crazy!
That is a really strange feeling.
All that slime.
(intense electronic music)
Oh, wow!
Man, I feel like I've got my arms
into the mouth of an alien right now,
all slippery and slimy.
I'm actually just moving my fingers around on the lamprey,
and they're just swimming right through my fingers.
There's the opportunity for them to feast right here.
Come on guys. I'm good.
I'm telling you. This is good blood right here.
Aren't you interested?
This is the Coyote Peterson buffet line.
Wow.
At this point,
my hands have been in here for close to two minutes.
Absolutely no bite.
I'm actually grabbing piles of lamprey
and coupling them together.
And all they're doing is swimming
with slimy effort.
Now, these fish are surrounded in all sorts of rumors.
When you're out there swimming in The Great Lakes,
I know a lot of people have heard the rumor that,
possibly, these things will latch on,
inflict a suction, bite,
and then suck out your insides.
Based on putting my arms into this aquarium,
I don't think that's gonna happen, guys,
unless you are a native fish species swimming around,
you have absolutely nothing to fear,
at least in my opinion, at this point,
from the sea lamprey.
So I've got two theories as to why the lamprey
have not turned me into a buffet line.
The first is that these guys
have an incredible sense of smell.
Remember, they're pretty much swimming noses.
Coyote Peterson doesn't smell like a fish.
My second theory is that they primarily feast upon things
that have cold blood.
I have warm blood.
So maybe it's possible that lamprey
aren't interested in having a warm-blooded meal at all.
However, I think to really push this experiment
to the next level,
we're gonna need to induce a suction.
What I wanna do is take a lamprey,
adhere one to my arm,
one to my stomach,
and one to my neck.
If that doesn't give them the opportunity
to feast upon human blood,
I don't know what will.
Stay tuned, guys.
I have a good feeling that part two to this experiment
is going to be wildly entertaining.
Hey, Coyote Pack,
stay tuned for the skin-squirming conclusion,
as I put myself in the nightmarish position
of being suctioned by sea lamprey.
Remember, you were alive when they begin to eat you.
And if the suspense is too intense to wait,
join memberships right now,
and see the thrilling conclusion before anyone else.
Ah!
Oh, okay! It let go.
Ah, no, no!
It went for another bite!
(coyote howls)