Southern Michigan River

I live on the Indiana/Michgan state line on the St. Joseph river. Last Thursday they used the damns to lower the river more than I have seen it in 18 years (body recovery). Anyway, I was able to get out and walk on the river bottom where we normally boat about 45 minutes before dark. In the puddles, we caught 4 eel like creatures about 3 inches long. About then our Argo (amphibous vehicle) got stuck in the mud. I did not have time to inspect the creatures to see if the were fish, amphibian or reptile. By the time we got the vehicle out of the river bed (1:00 am) I just put them in a 2 gallon aquarium with some tree frog tadpoles and decided to take pictures later. I finally had time today to look for them and they have buried themselves in the sand - I can't find them.

Any idea what these can be? I took a quick look at the Michigan DNR website - no real help. I will try to dig them out later then I get home from work at a reasonable hour.

Overall, it was really cool!!! I was hoping to find a mudpuppy, but our area of the river is all sand bottom - no rocky areas to flip over. We did find a stranded baby catfish, but with only 45 minites of daylight that is all we could do. They started raising the river level the next day and it's back to normal now.

Without a picture, it'll be hard to tell.

Yeah deff. need a picture. Im interested as to what these "eel like creatures" are.

some ideas as to what it may be:
a sea lamprey is an eel like creature and are invasives. Does it have an evil suckey-mouth? There are michigan native other species of lampreys.
other possiblity is that it is an american eel.

a young lamprey could burrow in the sand. Goodluck with identifying them, as soon as you get some pics up, there are plenty of people who can itentify what you found.

Nonetheless, waiting for picture, I am curious to what you found, especially since I go to both areas of Michigan from time-to-time, even been to St. Joe river.

here is a page on lampreys of Michigan:
http://www.nativefish.org/articles/MI_Lamprey.php

Hi, sorry it took me so long to post pictures. I had to totally empty the tank to find them in the sand. I think they are the Lamprey's. They swim like snakes and then rest on the bottom (alot of the times on their sides).

ssmithusp said:

Hi, sorry it took me so long to post pictures. I had to totally empty the tank to find them in the sand. I think they are the Lamprey's. They swim like snakes and then rest on the bottom (alot of the times on their sides).

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My vote goes towards American Brook lamprey - very rare!! well done mate

The St. Joes river system is also known to hold sea lamprey and the water shed is treated for them.

Ed

There is no doubt that infact those are them jawless fish, the lamprey. Interesting find.