| Lepas anserifera | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Lepas anserifera from Crete | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Subphylum: | Crustacea |
| Class: | Thecostraca |
| Subclass: | Cirripedia |
| Order: | Scalpellomorpha |
| Family: | Lepadidae |
| Genus: | Lepas |
| Species: | L. anserifera |
| Binomial name | |
| Lepas anserifera | |
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. [2]
Lepas anserifera has a shell or capitulum enclosed in six white plates supported by a tough, flexible, orange stalk or peduncle. The capitulum is about 4 centimetres (1.6 in) long and the stalk a similar length. The limy plates are thick and sculptured and are in close contact with each other. The largest plates, the pair of scuta at the stalk end, are quadrangular with longitudinal furrows and a smooth umbonal area. The pair of terga at the free end are trapezoid and more furrowed than the scutum and the carina in between are wide and forked. The tergal flaps are yellow, giving a coloured rim to the plates in the living animal. The body concealed by these plates consists of a head and thorax with a vestigial abdomen. The head bears the mouthparts consisting of a labrum with fine teeth on the inner margin, a blunt palpus, mandibles and maxillae. The thorax bears three pairs of maxillipeds and cirri with five or six pairs of long feeding appendages. The caudal appendages are curved and pointed which helps distinguish Lepas anserifera from other species. [2] [3] [4]
Lepas anserifera has a cosmopolitan distribution being found chiefly in temperate and tropical seas. It is normally found growing in clusters and anchored by its peduncle to driftwood and other floating objects, including whales. [5] It is sometimes found washed up on beaches still attached to this flotsam. [2]
Lepas anserifera is a hermaphrodite. [2] The life cycle is complex and involves a nauplius and a cyprid larval stage during which the animal is mobile and forms part of the plankton. The larva then settles on a suitable surface before undergoing metamorphosis and becoming a sessile, pedunculate juvenile. [4]
Lepas anserifera is a filter feeder. The feather-like cirri are repeatedly fanned out and then retracted inside the plates to create a current and draw in zooplankton and detritus for consumption. [6]
Before about 1100 AD, the migration of birds was not understood. The brant goose and the barnacle goose winter in Britain, Ireland, and Northwestern Europe, but breed in the far North so that the nests, eggs, and goslings were unknown. Goose barnacles including Lepas anserifera are so called because it was thought at that time that the birds hatched from the goose barnacles found in floating "nests" on the beach. [6]
A barnacle is a type of arthropod constituting the subclass 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 infraclass Rhizocephala are highly specialized parasites on crustaceans. 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.
capitulum may refer to:
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. Goose barnacles formerly made up the taxonomic order Pedunculata, but research has resulted in the classification of stalked barnacles within multiple orders of the infraclass Thoracica.
Anelasma is a monotypic genus of goose barnacles that live as parasites on various shark hosts.
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 barnacles are species of acorn barnacle that belong to the 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.
Balanus perforatus is a species of barnacle in the family Balanidae. It is found on the lower shore and in the neritic zone in the warm temperate parts of the eastern Atlantic Ocean.
Lepas is a genus of goose barnacles in the family Lepadidae.
Conchoderma is a genus of goose barnacles in the family Lepadidae.
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.
Galaxea is a genus of colonial stony corals in the family Euphylliidae. Common names include crystal, galaxy, starburst and tooth coral. They are abundant on reefs in the Indo-Pacific region and the Red Sea. They are found in water less than 20 metres (66 ft) deep and favour turbid sites. They are sometimes kept in reef aquaria.
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.
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.
Metacrinus rotundus, the Japanese sea lily, is a marine invertebrate, a species of stalked crinoid in the family Isselicrinidae. It is a species found off the west coast of Japan, and is living near the edge of the continental shelf, around 100–150m deep. This is the shallowest species among the extant stalked crinoids.
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.
Bourgueticrinida is an order of crinoids that typically live deep in the ocean. Members of this order are attached to the seabed by a slender stalk and are known as sea lilies. While other groups of crinoids flourished during the Permian, bourgueticrinids along with other extant orders did not appear until the Triassic, following a mass extinction event in which nearly all crinoids died out.
Coronula diadema is a species of whale barnacle that lives on the skin of humpback whales and certain other species of whale. This species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in the 1767 12th edition of his Systema Naturae.
Paralepas minuta is a species of goose barnacle in the family Heteralepadidae.
Glyptelasma hamatum is a species of goose barnacle in the family Poecilasmatidae.
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.