In: Biology
What might be a possible evolutionary explanation for the parasitic life-style seen in many lampreys considering they are agnaths?
Among the most primitive of all agnathan vertebrate, the sea lampreys are parasitic fish native to Atlantic Ocean, in which some of the blood-feeding forms are evolved to feed on both blood and flesh, while some become specialized to eat flesh and may even invade the internal organs of the host. Lampreys are the only extant vertebrate having four eyes and are look like an eel, but it has a jawless sucking mouth that it attaches to a fish. It is a parasite that sucks tissue and fluids out of the fish it is attached to.
Due to the parastic body shapes and the unique morphological characteristics: their cartilaginous skeleton, they are considered the most basal groups of the Vertebrata.
The last common ancestor of lampreys have specialized to feed on the blood and body fluids of other fish after metamorphosis by attaching their mouthparts to the target animal's body, then use three horny plates (or laminae) on the tip of their piston-like tongue scrape through surface tissues until they reach body fluids.