Man finds metre-long ‘vampire fish’ with mouth of swirling teeth in Devon river

A fisherman found a blood-sucking creature described as ‘a living dinosaur’ and the ‘stuff of nightmares’ while trying to fish in an English river.

Jason Moore, 47, was looking for a spot to catch chub when he found eel-like lamprey, up to one metre long, in the River Exe in Devon.

He said: ‘I was looking for rocks and snags and tree overhangs where the chub live, just trying to work out where I was going to go fishing next.

‘It was in the water, on the water’s edge. I was sort of like “wow, that’s amazing, look at the size of that! Let’s fish it out and have a look”.’

What he found was a dead lamprey as much as 10 times larger than any he’s seen before, and there were signs it had spawned eggs before it died.

Jason said: ‘It’s long and eel-like, and its mouth is – I don’t know how to describe it really – a bit like a leech I suppose, but much, much bigger.

‘It’s got rows and rows and rows of teeth, that almost look like the Demogorgon from Stranger Things. It looks quite horrifying.’

Nicknamed the ‘vampire fish’ for its blood-sucking tendencies, lampreys are said to be an inspiration for the sandworms in the Dune franchise.

Their bite can be so vicious, one man claimed to still be suffering from the wound nine years later.

‘No doubt the inspiration for many a sci-fi monster’, one person commented under a photo Jason posted of the specimen on Facebook.

It might appear ‘like something from a horror film’, but Jason believes theres no need to be afraid of the blood-sucking fish lurking in British waterways.

He said: ‘I think most people are a bit shocked that that type of thing swims in our rivers really.

‘But I wouldn’t want anybody to be scared or horrified, or really think about not going in the rivers, not kayaking, or avoiding a river for recreation just because that’s in there.’

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