Modacia mordax (Short-headed Lamprey)
Family: Mordaciidae (Lamprey)
Status: Native
Size: Grows up to 56cm.
Description: Lampreys are long, blue grey slender primitive jawless fishes with a cartilaginous skeleton, seven pairs of gill slits, a single median nostril and an oral sucking disc with a tongue-like structure bearing many sharp rasping teeth or denticles.
Location: Adults migrate upstream from the sea to spawn homing in on the scent of larvae (or ammocoetes) already in the river; larvae are found in silted slow flowing reaches of coastal streams and rivers.
No sightings currently exist.