How to Use lamprey in a Sentence

lamprey

noun
  • Moffatt had found lampreys at several new sites, well into the tropical zone above the Tropic of Capricorn.
    Paul Smaglik, Discover Magazine, 10 May 2024
  • The only ones known that are so endowed are the lampreys.
    The Economist, 5 Apr. 2018
  • Gaden expects to get a call for more lamprey in the near future, whenever a date is set for the coronation of the new monarch, Charles III.
    Bill Laitner, USA TODAY, 13 Sep. 2022
  • The lamprey stars in one of this book’s many fascinating vignettes of violence and mayhem—or the threat of it.
    James Romm, WSJ, 12 Mar. 2021
  • Sturgeon fishing is best in Suisun Bay between the two major bridges or the Big Cut with lamprey eel, salmon roe, or ghost shrimp.
    By Roger George and Dave Hurley, sacbee.com, 6 June 2017
  • And lampreys — the jawless fish that have been around, unchanged, for 360 million years — have round, suction-disk mouths and teeth on their tongues to scrape through skin and access blood.
    Sofia Quaglia, Discover Magazine, 31 May 2023
  • The good news, however, is that lamprey numbers are dropping some.
    John Myers, Twin Cities, 13 Nov. 2019
  • This year, more than 2,600 lamprey were counted making the journey upriver to breed.
    Kale Williams, OregonLive.com, 13 June 2018
  • The department says the larval lamprey live in freshwater for a few years burrowed in sandy substrate.
    USA TODAY, 10 June 2019
  • Fish counts at Willamette Falls are a week behind because of a glut of returning Pacific lamprey, Jones said.
    Bill Monroe, OregonLive.com, 7 June 2017
  • Scans of the fossils showed that the creature’s teeth probably were made of keratin, just like lamprey teeth (and human fingernails).
    Michael Greshko, National Geographic, 16 Mar. 2016
  • Staff members, their hands protected with gloves, carefully lifted one of the lampreys and plopped it into a tall tank.
    Brigit Katz, Smithsonian, 2 Dec. 2019
  • Sturgeon fishing remains excellent with salmon roe or lamprey eel in Suisun Bay for the few guides still working the area.
    sacbee, 23 Apr. 2018
  • Again, Seneca tells us that Augustus ordered Pollio’s crystal smashed and all his lamprey pools filled.
    Iain Murray, National Review, 16 Dec. 2023
  • That's about the time that our early vertebrate ancestors--lamprey-like jawless fishes--evolved the first fins.
    Carl Zimmer, Discover Magazine, 10 Dec. 2012
  • Having explored its new environment, the lamprey settled onto the pebbles at the bottom of the tank.
    Brigit Katz, Smithsonian, 2 Dec. 2019
  • Other foods that hold spiritual and health values for tribes include lamprey, roots, berries and wild game.
    Rocky Barker, idahostatesman, 8 July 2017
  • This rise of the natives is, ironically, tied to the wave after wave of invasive species that made their way into the lakes in the decades after the lamprey and alewife infestations.
    jsonline.com, 2 Sep. 2021
  • This may help the lake steelheads recover from parasitic lampreys, which are widespread in that fresh water.
    Elizabeth Pennisi, Science | AAAS, 1 June 2018
  • This allowed researchers to concoct a lamprey-specific poison that was pumped into key rivers and streams.
    Dan Egan, jsonline.com, 2 Sep. 2021
  • And walk along Klamath Beach to search for lamprey eels, Chinook salmon, eagles, osprey, pelicans and sea lions.
    Sarah Sekula, USA TODAY, 13 Feb. 2020
  • The suction-cup mouth and teeth helps a lamprey burrow into (and feed on) the flesh of trout, sturgeon, whitefish, ciscoes, burbot, walleye, catfish, and salmon, among others.
    Joe Genzel, Outdoor Life, 27 May 2020
  • Augustus, however, intervened, and ordered all of Pollio’s crystal ware to be smashed and all his lamprey pools to be filled in.
    Iain Murray, National Review, 16 Dec. 2023
  • The remarkable result is that today the top of the Lake Huron food chain more closely resembles its natural self than anytime since the lamprey and alewives invaded in the mid-1900s.
    jsonline.com, 2 Sep. 2021
  • First, came the vampire-like lamprey, which spread across the lakes with shocking speed in the 1940s, before scientists brought them under control with designer poison.
    Robert Moor, New York Times, 23 May 2017
  • Scientists have come to understand the instinctual part of our brain in part by studying lampreys.
    Nick Heil, Outside Online, 3 July 2018
  • The human brain is very different from the brain of a lamprey, but in both species the neocortex—the outer layers of the brain—is divided into two mirror-image hemispheres.
    Carl Zimmer, Discover Magazine, 19 Aug. 2014
  • But our studies have also revealed some strange features of the lamprey, including the fact that they get rid of hundreds of genes early in development.
    Diana Gitig, Ars Technica, 28 Jan. 2018
  • The researchers obtained dead insects, hagfish, lampreys and other animals to watch them wither away.
    Kristin Hugo, Newsweek, 21 Mar. 2018
  • That includes salmon, steelhead, lampreys, other fish that normally call that river home.
    Dana Taylor, USA TODAY, 23 Feb. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'lamprey.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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