The lamprey, a freshwater vampire

It is not a particular species, but an order of agnathous fish, that is, without a jaw;

Therefore, to say lamprey is to cover around 40 species in the world.

But although it is a jawless fish, the lamprey presents itself to us with terrifying teeth and a circular, suction-shaped mouth that sticks to its prey, scratching its flesh and sucking its blood as if it were a vampire. sweet water.

They are the origin of vertebrates and Alvaro Cunqueiro wanted to see the empanada of the Portico of Glory of the Cathedral of Santiago filled with lamprey.

Their snack dates back centuries and Pliny the Elder tells us in his

how “Gaius Hirius lent from his pool, solely for Caesar's triumphal dinners, six thousand lampreys, which he did not want to sell or exchange for any other merchandise.” hinting at the exquisiteness of its juicy blood flesh;

a delicatessen

However, seeing a lamprey for the first time in its natural habitat can cause our neural networks to suffer a temporary collapse in the face of a creature as old as the world.

If you add to this a poorly tempered stomach, it will be difficult for you to sit down and eat a plate of lamprey without gagging.

But, let's go back to the times of Pliny, because in the bed of the Miño the Romans built a kind of ashlar traps to enclose the fish.

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Bats, myths and vampires

In such

lampreys were trapped and taken in vessels to Rome for the enjoyment of the most demanding palates.

There are legends that speak of lamprey ponds where slaves were punished by submerging them alive and, for that matter, Torrente Ballester in

presents us with the Baralla lampreys whose quality depended on the number of people who had drowned in the aforementioned pond. river.

Following the tradition of those times, lamprey fishing in the Miño has become a ritual.

Now, around this time, the lampreys ascend the Miño ready to spawn.

For a little over a month they lay their eggs and then die.

The life cycle of these ancient fish is curious, since, two weeks after spawning, the larvae or

are born , which will spend about five years under the river soil before reaching the sea.

It will be in the salt waters where they will live a couple more years before returning to the river to spawn.

During the time they spend in the sea they live by parasitizing other fish.

The lamprey is one of the few prehistoric vestiges that remain, an animal that goes up the rivers to follow the ancestral rite of life and death, a mythological being that is part of Galician folklore and that, according to Álvaro Cunqueiro, “brings its flesh the cinnamon of the underwater forests, and perhaps from the taste of the lamprey we know that of the kisses of the mermaids.”

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