But the good news is that they are so focused on spawning that their digestive system shuts down. “They could not feed if they wanted to,” said Marc Gaden, communications director for the Lakes Commission. “They have only one thing on their mind as soon as they reach this stage of spawning, and that is to find a partner and give birth successfully.” CLOCKS Sea urchins build their nest underwater near Belleisle Bay

Blood-sucking fish, like a snake, arrive to give birth

Underwater shots of sea urchins nesting and building nests in a stream in the Midland, about 58 miles northeast of Saint John Sometimes mistakenly called an eel, the sea urchin is a fish with a strong suction cup in its mouth, filled with multiple circular rows of horn-shaped teeth, and a tongue that pierces the host’s body so that it can liquefy its tissues and feed itself. These lizards spend much of their lives at sea, clinging to and feeding on the blood of other fish. But at this time of year, adults return to inland streams and rivers to give birth. Oana Birceanu, an assistant professor at Western University in Ontario, has been studying the brilliance of the sea for years. “I have worked with sea urchins for so many years, but I have never seen them make their nests in the wild,” said Birceanu. The Great Lakes Fisheries Commission website describes the mouth of a bulb as “a large mouth-watering disc filled with sharp, horn-shaped teeth surrounding a sharp razor blade.” That’s why he was fascinated by a video taken by Mike Sherwood near his home in the Belleisle area. They are underwater shots of many nests that build brilliance in a stream in the Midland. “It’s fascinating,” Birceanu said after watching the video. Sherwood’s video shows an adult brilliantly locking rocks around – some larger than softballs. Other parts of the video show them stuck on even bigger rocks with their loud suction cups. At one point, it even captures two fish spawning in one of the crescent-shaped nests they worked on.

Lamp life cycle

Birceanu said males usually leave the Atlantic Ocean first and lead to the breeding ground. He said the pheromones emitted by the larvae from previous eras that are still in the area help guide them. The females then follow these pheromones and those released by the males, which begin to work in the nests even before the females arrive. He said sea urchins are looking for rocky areas to lay eggs because the rocks help protect newly born eggs. Ideally, they are looking for rocky ground upstream and mud downstream. The eggs evolve into worm-like creatures that make their way to the point where they can burrow into the sandy bottom. They usually stay in this state, feeding on algae and decomposing matter for three to seven years – and for 14 years in some cases, Birceanu said. The head of a sea lamp with its mouth closed, hiding the shiver inside. Once they reach 120 mm in length, they stop feeding and go through a metamorphosis, where they transform into their adult body. This transformation of about two months even changes the way they breathe so that they can continue to breathe while fully attached to a host. Once the transformation is complete, these young are directed to the sea, where they cling to the host fish and then feed at will as the host continues his life. Then, when it’s time to play, the bulbs return to the inland waters to start the cycle from the beginning. But once it is over, both males and females die. “They put all their energy into this spawning phase and they die after spawning,” Gaden said.

Same fish, different story

Sea urchins are native to Atlantic Canada. They are part of the ecosystem and other species have learned to evolve with them. They are beneficial even for fish such as salmon, returning valuable nutrients to the environment when many of them die after spawning. But in other places, it is an invasive species that has changed the ecosystem and decimated other fish populations. The Great Lakes were particularly affected when new canals opened up new habitat for sea otters in the mid-1900s. Gaden said that the scientific name for sea urchins means sucker stone. “The power of this suction cup is also what makes the light bulb so deadly in the Great Lakes,” he said. Marc Gaden is the Communications Director and Legislative Liaison Officer for the Lakes Fisheries Commission. (Submitted by Marc Gaden) They close on the fish and their tongue pierces their host’s scales and skin and feeds on blood and tissue, usually killing the host. “Very often in their native Atlantic area, the sea urchin will be a real parasite. That is, it can feed on fish and not kill the host and then possibly go to another species.” But in the Great Lakes, native species are not large enough to survive their parasitic hitchhiking, and millions of fish have been killed in the process. Gaden said a sea urchin can feed and kill about 40 pounds of fish in about two years. For decades, the Fisher Lakes Commission has been working to gain control of the Lambra population. Every year, they spread glare on waterways to kill millions of larvae each year. Lake Superior populations on Lake Superior are on their way back, according to Alex Gonzalez of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. (Photo: T. Lawrence GLFC) Without such vigilant and continuous efforts, Gaden said that it would not be long before the sea lamps bloom again. After all, every female can lay from 50,000 to 120,000 eggs. And without natural predators, the return would be quick. “Sea lamps are very opportunistic. If you facilitate the control even for a while, they will come back after a few years.” The Commission maintains an ongoing report on its website on the number of light bulbs that have been killed so far this year. The meter is currently over 2.5 million. As their numbers peaked, Gaden said eradication efforts had reduced the sea urchin by 95 percent, “and that saves more than 110 million pounds of Lakes fish a year.”

‘A wonderful trick in the living room’

Gaden helps run the committee’s public awareness campaign, where he gets live sea lamps on the street. He said that they do “a big trick in the living room” and he has lost count of how many times he has stuck one in his flesh. He said it is a testament to how powerful the suction is, but because the bulbs do not feed on warm-blooded animals, they do not pierce people with their tongues. Gaden said it was impossible to catch the fish once they were locked. It shows how impossible it would be for a host fish to shake itself off. He said it takes a little effort to squeeze the sides of his mouth until the suction breaks with a sonic burst. Hamilton Mountain MP Lisa Hepfner has a light bulb stuck in her hand with Niagara Center MP Vance Badawey on Parliament Hill in April. (Submitted by Marc Gaden) “You have to break the seal. You can’t just take it off. I’ve heard it described as as powerful as a store license.” Gadden recently went to Parliament with a brilliant show and asked many Members of Parliament to volunteer to put a light bulb in their hand. With all the horror features of a light bulb, a legend is not true. Lampreys do not travel on land, Gaden said. Although they are able to make their way over and around obstacles, they do not leave water, unlike some species such as the snake’s head, another invasive species in Canada that can travel on land for short distances. .

The video

Birceanu said Sherwood’s video shows the males building the nest. He said males have a back that “looks like a vein” along their backs. It is also more silver than females. He said at one point in the video, the female releases her eggs at the same time as the male releases his sperm. “Males and females are interconnected and have this trembling behavior and that’s when they release eggs and males release sperm,” Birceanu said.