Lepas anatifera

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Lepas anatifera
Lepas anatifera 1.jpg
Scientific classification Red Pencil Icon.png
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Crustacea
Class: Maxillopoda
Order: Lepadiformes
Family: Lepadidae
Genus: Lepas
Species:
L. anatifera
Binomial name
Lepas anatifera

Lepas anatifera, commonly known as the pelagic gooseneck barnacle or smooth gooseneck barnacle, is a species of barnacle in the family Lepadidae. These barnacles 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. [2]

Contents

Description

Barnacles dangling from a piece of timber, from the Natural History Museum, London Iz - Lepas anatifera.jpg
Barnacles dangling from a piece of timber, from the Natural History Museum, London

The body or capitulum of Lepas anatifera 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, a thorax, and a vestigial abdomen. A number of brown, filamentous cirri or feeding tentacles project from between the plates. The peduncle is tough and a purplish-brown colour. The capitulum may grow to a length of 5 centimetres (2.0 in) and the peduncle varies between 4 centimetres (1.6 in) and 80 centimetres (31 in). [3]

Distribution

Lepas anatifera has a cosmopolitan distribution and is found in tropical and subtropical seas worldwide. Because it frequently is attached to objects carried into colder seas by currents, such as the North Atlantic Drift, it often is found well away from its place of origin and in waters too cold for it to reproduce. In this way, it has been documented in Norway, the Shetland Islands, the Faeroe Islands, Iceland, and Spitsbergen. [3]

Biology

Lepas anatifera is a hermaphrodite and starts to breed when it is about 2.5 centimetres (1 in) long. Fertilisation is internal and the eggs are brooded inside the mantle for a week before emerging as free-swimming nauplius larvae. After further development, drifting as part of the plankton, these settle onto floating objects. [2]

Lepas anatifera has long been known to grow on sea turtles, but in 2008, some small specimens were found attached to an American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus) on the Pacific coast of Mexico. That crocodile species mostly inhabits mangrove swamps and river estuaries, but it is salt tolerant, and sometimes is found in marine environments. In this instance, the size of the goose-neck barnacles indicated that the crocodile must have been in the sea for at least a week. That is the first time that Lepas anatifera has been recorded as an epibiont of a crocodilian. [4]

Origin of the name

In thirteenth-century England the word "barnacle" was used for a species of waterfowl, the barnacle goose (Branta leucopsis). This bird breeds in the Arctic, but winters in the British Isles so its nests and eggs were never seen by the British. At the time, it was thought that the gooseneck barnacles that wash up occasionally on the shore had spontaneously generated from the rotting wood to which they were attached, and therefore, that the geese might be generated similarly. Credence to the idea was provided by the tuft of brown cirri that protruded from the capitulum of the crustaceans that resembled the down of an unhatched gosling. Popular belief linked the two species and a writer in 1678 wrote "multitudes of little Shells; having within them little Birds perfectly shap'd, supposed to be Barnacles [by which he meant barnacle geese]." [5]

Related Research Articles

Barnacle Infraclass of crustaceans

A barnacle is a type of arthropod constituting the infraclass Cirripedia in the subphylum Crustacea, and is hence related to crabs and lobsters. Barnacles are exclusively marine, and tend to live in shallow and tidal waters, typically in erosive settings. They are sessile (nonmobile) and most are suspension feeders, but those in superorder Rhizocephala are parasitic. They have four nektonic larval stages. Around 1,000 barnacle species are currently known. The name "Cirripedia" is Latin, meaning "curl-footed". The study of barnacles is called cirripedology.

Barnacle goose Species of bird

The barnacle goose belongs to the genus Branta of black geese, which contains species with largely black plumage, distinguishing them from the grey Anser species. Despite its superficial similarity to the brant goose, genetic analysis has shown it is an eastern derivative of the cackling goose lineage.

Goose barnacle Order of barnacles

Goose barnacles, also called stalked barnacles or gooseneck barnacles, are filter-feeding crustaceans that live attached to hard surfaces of rocks and flotsam in the ocean intertidal zone.

Marine reptile Reptiles which have become secondarily adapted for an aquatic or semi-aquatic life in a marine environment

Marine reptiles are reptiles which have become secondarily adapted for an aquatic or semiaquatic life in a marine environment.

<i>Anelasma</i> Species of parasitic barnacles that attack sharks

Anelasma is a monotypic genus of goose barnacles that live as parasites on various shark hosts.

<i>Semibalanus balanoides</i> Species of barnacle

Semibalanus balanoides is a common and widespread boreo-arctic species of acorn barnacle. It is common on rocks and other substrates in the intertidal zone of north-western Europe and both coasts of North America.

Whale barnacle Barnacles that attach to whales

Whale barnacles are species of acorn barnacle that belong to the subfamily Coronulinae, family Coronulidae. They typically attach to baleen whales, and sometimes settle on toothed whales. The whale barnacles diverged from the turtle barnacles about three million years ago.

<i>Pollicipes pollicipes</i> Species of barnacle

Pollicipes pollicipes, known as the goose neck barnacle, goose barnacle or leaf barnacle is a species of goose barnacle, also well known under the taxonomic synonym Pollicipes cornucopia. It is closely related to Pollicipes polymerus, a species with the same common names, but found on the Pacific coast of North America, and to Pollicipes elegans a species from the coast of Chile. It is found on rocky shores in the north-east Atlantic Ocean and is prized as a delicacy, especially in the Iberian Peninsula.

<i>Dosima</i> Genus of barnacles

Dosima fascicularis, the buoy barnacle, is "the most specialised pleustonic goose barnacle" species. It hangs downwards from the water surface, held up by a float of its own construction, and is carried along by ocean currents.

<i>Lepas</i> Genus of barnacles

Lepas is a genus of goose barnacles in the family Lepadidae.

Conchoderma is a genus of goose barnacles in the family Lepadidae.

<i>Lepas anserifera</i> Species of barnacle

Lepas anserifera is a species of goose barnacle or stalked barnacle in the family Lepadidae. It lives attached to floating timber, ships' hulls and various sorts of flotsam.

<i>Pollicipes polymerus</i> Species of crustacean

Pollicipes polymerus, commonly known as the gooseneck barnacle or leaf barnacle, is a species of stalked barnacle. It is found, often in great numbers, on rocky shores on the Pacific coasts of North America.

<i>Megabalanus tintinnabulum</i> Species of barnacle

Megabalanus tintinnabulum is a species of large barnacle in the family Balanidae. It is the type species of the genus. The specific name comes from the Latin tintinnabulum meaning a handbell and probably refers to the fact that small groups of barnacles resemble clusters of miniature bells.

<i>Capitulum mitella</i> Species of barnacle

Capitulum is a monotypic genus of sessile marine stalked barnacles. Capitulum mitella is the only species in the genus. It is commonly known as the Japanese goose barnacle or kamenote and is found on rocky shores in the Indo-Pacific region.

Vulcanolepas osheai, commonly referred to as O'Shea's vent barnacle, is a stalked barnacle of the family Eolepadidae. This species is endemic to New Zealand.

Platylepas ophiophila, commonly known as the sea snake barnacle, is a species of barnacle in the family Platylepadidae. It is native to the Indo-Pacific Ocean where it lives as a symbiont of a sea snake.

<i>Platylepas hexastylos</i> Species of barnacle

Platylepas hexastylos is a species of barnacle in the family Platylepadidae. It is native to the Indo-Pacific Ocean where it lives as a symbiont of such large marine creatures as the dugong, the green sea turtle, the olive ridley sea turtle, or the loggerhead sea turtle.

<i>Chelonibia testudinaria</i> Species of barnacle

Chelonibia testudinaria is a species of barnacle in the family Chelonibiidae. It is native to the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea and Gulf of Mexico where it lives as a symbiont on sea turtles, being particularly abundant on the loggerhead sea turtle.

<i>Conchoderma virgatum</i> Species of crustacean

Conchoderma virgatum is a species of goose barnacle in the family Lepadidae. It is a pelagic species found in open water in most of the world's oceans attached to drifting objects or marine organisms.

References

  1. ↑ Lepas anatifera Linnaeus, 1758 World Register of Marine Species. Retrieved 2011-12-02.
  2. 1 2 Lepas anatifera Linnaeus, 1758 Archived 2007-10-18 at the Wayback Machine WallaWalla. Retrieved 2011-12-02.
  3. 1 2 Lepas anatifera Marine Species Identification Portal. Retrieved 2011-12-02.
  4. ↑ Fabio Germán Cupul-Magaña; Armando Rubio-Delgado; Armando H. Escobedo-Galván; Carolina Reyes-Núñez (2011). "First report of the marine barnacles Lepas anatifera and Chelonibia testudinaria as epibionts on American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus)" (PDF). Herpetology Notes. 4: 213–214. Retrieved 2011-12-02.
  5. ↑ Barnacle American Heritage Dictionary. Retrieved 2011-12-04.
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