Sea lamprey

Other English names for the sea lamprey include lamper, lamprey, nine-eyes, eel sucker and lamprey eel. The IUCN Red List assesses the sea lamprey globally as Least Concern, which is not a threatened category.

Weight

up to 2.3 kgsrc for Weight

Length

up to 1.2 msrc for Length

Lifespan

Not recorded

Main food

vertebratessrc for Main food

Habitat

marine, riverinesrc for Habitat

Young per litter or clutch

Not recorded

Reproduction

Eggssrc for Reproduction

Migration

Migratorysrc for Migration

Conservation status

Least Concern (IUCN)src for Conservation status

Countries on record

Not recorded

Not recorded

The sea lamprey is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List: it is not currently at risk of extinction.

1. LCLeast Concern
2. NTNear Threatened
3. VUVulnerable
4. ENEndangered
5. CRCritically Endangered
6. EWExtinct in the Wild
7. EXExtinct

Category via Wikidata (CC0). Find the full assessment on the IUCN Red List. See all Least Concern species. What the categories mean.

1. kingdomAnimalia
2. phylumChordata
3. classPetromyzonti
4. orderPetromyzontiformes
5. familyPetromyzontidae
6. genusPetromyzon
7. SpeciesPetromyzon marinus Linnaeus, 1758

Synonyms Ammocoetes bicolor, Batymyzon bairdii, Lampetra marina, Oceanomyzon wilsoni, Petromyzon adriaticus, Petromyzon americanus, Petromyzon bairdii, Petromyzon concolor, Petromyzon lampetra, Petromyzon maculosus, Petromyzon marinus dorsatus, Petromyzon marinus unicolor, Petromyzon maximus, Petromyzon maximus, Petromyzon nigricans, Petromyzon ruber

Catalogue of LifeWikipediaiNaturalistITISTAXREFWikidataWoRMSIUCN Red List

CompareSea lamprey vs Ammocoetes labiataSea lamprey vs Petromyzon leucopterusSea lamprey vs Petromyzon maurariSea lamprey vs Petromyzon mustela

• Catalogue of Life eXtended Release · CC BY 4.0 · 2026-10-16 XR
  Catalogue of Life (2026). Catalogue of Life eXtended Release, version 2026-10-16 XR. Catalogue of Life Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.48580/dgzlf
• Wikimedia Commons · per file (CC0 / public domain / CC BY green, CC BY-SA amber, anything else not displayed) · 2026-11-11
  Wikimedia Commons contributors. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org (each file credited to its author under its own licence).
• Environment Agency freshwater fish surveys (National Fish Populations Database) · OGL v3.0 · 2026-11-14
  Environment Agency. Freshwater fish surveys (NFPD). Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right. https://environment.data.gov.uk/ecology/explorer/
• Global Biotic Interactions (GloBI): interpreted data products · CC0 1.0 · 0.11
  Poelen, J.H., Simons, J.D. & Mungall, C.J. (2014) Global Biotic Interactions: an open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics 24: 148–159. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2014.08.005. Data: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22691479, with each record's original reference.
• Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species (GRIIS) · CC BY 4.0 · 2026-11-13
  Pagad, S., Genovesi, P., Carnevali, L., Schigel, D. & McGeoch, M.A. (2018) Introducing the Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species. Scientific Data 5: 170202. https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2017.202. Country checklists published through GBIF by the IUCN SSC Invasive Species Specialist Group.
• Wikidata · CC0 1.0 · 2026-11-11
  Wikidata contributors. Wikidata. https://www.wikidata.org (data retrieved via the Wikidata Query Service).
• Wikipedia (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 2026-11-11
  Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org (text under CC BY-SA 4.0; each block names its article and revision).

@misc{petromyzon_marinus_2026,
  title = {Sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus)},
  author = {{CreatureData}},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://creaturedata.com/animals/petromyzon-marinus},
  note = {Data as of 2026-11-14}
}