Goose barnacle

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Goose barnacle
Pollicipes pollicipes
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Subphylum: Crustacea Class: Maxillopoda Infraclass: Cirripedia Order: Pedunculata Lamarck, 1818 [1]
Suborders and Families
Heteralepadomorpha Newman, 1987 Anelasmatidae Gruvel, 1905 Heteralepadidae Nilsson-Cantell, 1921 Koleolepadidae Hiro, 1933 Malacolepadidae Hiro, 1937 Microlepadidae Zevina, 1980 Rhizolepadidae Zevina, 1980 Iblomorpha Newman, 1987 Iblidae Leach, 1825 Lepadomorpha Pilsbry, 1916 Lepadidae Darwin, 1852 Oxynaspididae Gruvel, 1905 Poecilasmatidae Annandale, 1909 Scalpellomorpha Newman, 1987 Calanticidae Zevina, 1978 Lithotryidae Gruvel, 1905 Pollicipedidae Leach, 1817 Scalpellidae Pilsbry, 1907

Goose barnacles (order Pedunculata), 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.

Some species of goose barnacles are pelagic and are most frequently found on tidewrack on oceanic coasts. Unlike most other types of barnacles, intertidal goose barnacles depend on water motion rather than the movement of their cirri for feeding, and are therefore found only on exposed or moderately exposed coasts.

In Portugal and Spain, they are a widely consumed and expensive delicacy known as percebes. Percebes are harvested commercially in the northern coast and are also imported from overseas, particularly from Morocco and Canada.

In the days before it was realised that birds migrate, it was thought that Barnacle Geese, Branta leucopsis, developed from this crustacean, since they were never seen to nest in temperate Europe, hence the scientific and English names. The confusion was prompted by the similarities in colour and shape. Because they were often found on driftwood, it was assumed that the barnacles were attached to branches before they fell in the water. The Welsh monk, Giraldus Cambrensis, claimed to have seen goose barnacles in the process of turning into barnacle geese in the twelfth century.^[2]

Lepas anserifera, Bophut, Ko Samui, Thailand

Close-up, San Juan Island

Goose barnacles at Friday Harbor, Washington

Goose barnacles on driftwood, washed up at Boca Raton, Florida

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