Dr. David Reed is an ichthyologist who also took classes with the famed geologist, Professor Carl Maia. While at school, he also met Dr. Kay Lawrence, who interned at the Marine Biology Institute, where both of them would later work. Kay and David were a couple, but the administrator of the Institute, Dr. Mark Williams, was also interested in Kay. When Dr. Maia discovered a curious fossil in the Amazon, he brought it to David for examination, and he, Mark, and Kay, along with a few others, formed a team to find the rest of what could be a significant Paleontological find.Unfortunately, what they found was the dead bodies of the two assistants Dr. Maia left behind, but no fossil. At Dr. Reed's suggestion, they moved into the nearby Black Lagoon to look for more evidence. Meanwhile the tension between the two rivals was mounting, played out in the form of disagreements over the scientific vs. sensationalist value of the reearch they were engaged in. This only heightened upon the discovery of a Gill Man living in the Lagoon. David wanted to leave it there for study, Mark insisted on bringing it back. Meanwhile, the creature began to attack and kill members of the crew, showing a strangely mammalian interest in Kay and adding a fourth angle to the love triangle (trapezoid?).It was, of course, Dr. Reed himself who saved Kay and killed or severely wounded the creature, after Mark received his comeuppance at the hands of his fish-faced rival/quarry. Show less «