Lampreys, and Gerbils, and Rat Snakes, Oh My!

My classroom at Albany Grade School was actually a lab room. As you can see from the photos it was well equipped, thanks to the efforts of those who came before me. In addition to the sinks, gas and electric hookups, the room had a large aquarium display which included two 10 gallon tanks and one 20 gallon.

When I started teaching, I felt it important that students understand environmental science. In particular, I wanted them to know about living things in their own environment. For this reason, I decided to fill the tanks with local animals.

Living in a town on the Mississippi River, meant there were plenty of opportunities to obtain wildlife. All I needed to do was to inform the students I wanted local fish and animals in the tanks.

One year, we had bass, bluegills, and a particularly shy catfish in the tank. The catfish would hide in the farthest corner of the tank behind the thermometer suspended in the tank. This meant it was always vertical. My theory was the catfish did not like all of the light the classroom and would only come out when the lights were off.

One Monday morning in the spring, one of the students brought a bucket full of tadpoles he had captured over the weekend. He carried this bucket on the bus. Immediately upon arriving, he poured the 10 of more large tadpoles into the large tank and proceeded to his locker. The lights were off in my classroom when he arrived and I was not in the room.

His science class was scheduled for later in the morning. When he entered the room, he went to the tank to see the tadpoles, but they were all gone. The catfish was settled on the bottom of the tank, out of hiding, and had a quite large belly.

The grandfather of one of my students was a local game warden. He and I became acquainted, and he offered to bring me fish. One winter, he was involved in a fish count on the river. One of the fish floated up with a lamprey eel attached to it.

Lampreys are parasitic and bore into their victims to suck their blood. They eventually kill their host. The warden brought me the lamprey. That year, we had no other fish in the large tank.

The lamprey attacked the side of the tank. It moved very quickly and suddenly it was attached. It was frightening to see that its mouth suck onto the glass, while its raspy mouth worked back and forth trying to penetrate the glass.

I could only stand to look at this for a few days. The lamprey was removed and destroyed. I shudder today about the thing and can still see it attached to the glass.

Over the years other creatures were displayed in my classroom. Early on I purchased a visible beehive, which sat in the back corner of my classroom by the window. I removed a corner of the window glass, and attached a vinyl tube to the hive and out the window. The students enjoyed watching the bees come and go, adding pollen to their hive. This lasted for many years.

Science teachers are not always popular with the staff at their school. In particular, the custodians and cooks don’t like the critters who occasionally escape the confinement of the science room.

I can still see the day, the custodian, Archie, came walking very fast toward me, as he passed he turned and said “Snake's out” and continued rapidly up the hallway. I never saw Archie move that fast. The little snake was in the hallway trying to move on the well waxed floor. All it did was wiggle back and forth.

Hazel and Archie custodians

The snake was tiny rat snake one of the students brought to me. Although the snake was small, somehow I kept finding it on the floor of the science room. The tank was too deep for it climb out, but I would continue to find it in the morning.

I later discovered how the escape artist performed its feat. It would slide through the small cap full of water that was in the tank. With its skin wet, it would stick to the glass for a few minutes. This was enough time to reach the top where the light cord for the tank light hung down an inch below the light. This was all it needed to pull itself up and out.

Then there was the gerbil, another escape artist. This one got out regularly, usually over the weekend. The first time I lost it I searched the room to no avail. After an hour of looking, I decided to get ready for class. Then I heard a scream from all the way up the hallway past the office. “It’s a rat!”  The cooks had found my gerbil!

The gerbil didn’t last long. It escaped and disappeared. When cleaning out the equipment for summer, I found a narrow vertical tank which was in the aquarium storage shelf. There, dead for several months, was my gerbil. He found a tank he couldn’t escape. You can see the tank that was its final prison on the far right of the photo, sitting on the sink. He was the last of the creatures I kept in my classroom.