structural:reformatting, structural:scholar_edition
Fossil record

The oldest fossil lamprey, Priscomyzon, is known from the latest Devonian of South Africa around 360 million years ago, with other stem-group lampreys, like Pipiscius, Mayomyzon and Hardistiella known from the Carboniferous of North America. These Paleozoic stem-lampreys are small relative to modern lampreys, and while they had well developed oral discs with a small number of radially arranged teeth, they lacked the specialised, heavily toothed discs with plate-like laminae present in modern lampreys, and it is possible that they fed by scraping algae off of animals, rather than feeding by predation/parasitism. They also lacked the modern three stage life cycle including ammocoetes found in modern lampreys, with the juvenile stages of these species closely resembling adults. Myxineidus from the Carboniferous of France, often considered to be a hagfish, has been found to be a lamprey in some studies. The earliest lamprey with the specialised toothed oral disc typical of modern lampreys is Yanliaomyzon from the Middle Jurassic of China around 163 million years old, which is thought to have had a predatory lifestyle like modern lampreys, and probably had a three stage life cycle including ammocoetes. Mesomyzon from the Early Cretaceous of China, which displays the three stage life cycle with ammocoetes, was found in one study to be more closely related to the family Petromyzonidae than to other living lampreys, though other studies have found it to be outside the group containing all living lampreys.