-The lampreys or lamper eel and hagfishes are the sole existing representative of group ‘Agnatha’, i.e., ‘Jawless fish’. They are characterised by the absence of both jaws, pectoral and pelvic fins or paired fins. -Hagfish and Lampreys both belong to the super-class cyclostomata which contain a small group of Agnathans (Greek for jaw-less fish) *but that is the only place where they have similarities, as lampreys are vertebrates and hagfish are not. -Often they can be mistaken or thought to be related to eels due to their visual similarities, but they aren’t even remotely related. They only share the same kingdom and phylum. Plus eels have only been present for about five million years.
The first photo is a hagfish. The second is an eel. The main visual difference is the head and mouth of an eel compared to a lamprey.
-Their ecological niche is the sea and the Northern Hemisphere. The fact that they move from fresh water to salt water bodies depending on their specific life phase means they aren’t very limited by a specific habitat. Different types of lampreys will exist in different climate zones but sea lamprey are prevalent near the Great Lakes of North America(invasively) along with the shores of Europe, the Mediterranean Sea, Japan, and the Western and Northern Atlantic Ocean. -They are native to the Connecticut River Basin of the United States.