Saltwater. Barnacles. These are found, often in large numbers, attached by their flexible stalks to floating timber, the hulls of ships, piers, pilings, seaweed and various sorts of flotsam.

Size: Capitulum can grow to a length of 5 centimetres and the peduncle varies between 4 cm and 80 cm.
Color: Valves smooth or minutely striated, white and fairly translucent, with concentric growth lines and traces of radiating lines.The peduncle is tough and a purplish-brown colour.
Shape: The body or capitulum is supported by a long, flexible stalk or peduncle. There are five smooth, translucent plates, edged with scarlet and separated by narrow gaps. The plates have growth lines parallel with their margins and a few faint radial sculpture lines. Inside the capitulum, the barnacle has a head and thorax and vestigial abdomen. A number of brown, filamentous cirri or feeding tentacles project from between the plates.

Inhabits coral reefs. Because it is often attached to objects carried into colder seas by currents, such as the North Atlantic Drift, it is often found well away from its place of origin and in waters too cold for it to reproduce.

(Marion Haarsma)

- Humann, P. (2001). Reef Creature Identification: Florida, Caribbean, Bahamas Author: Paul Humann, Publisher: New World Publications Pages: 4.

Commentaar