Made for Pens and Feathers

✤ The Nature of Things: Mega barnacle

I found this pair of outsized barnacles attached to an abandoned fishing buoy that had washed up high on a beach in northern Peru. I believe they are of the giant acorn variety, possibly the Titan acorn barnacle (Megabalanus coccopoma). Could anyone please confirm for me?

The original inhabitants had long gone, so I thought the shells would make a great pen/feather holder for my writing desk.

For the record, the drawing of the giant otter in the background is not mine, but the work of my daughter’s art teacher, for a joint children’s book project (that’s another story :-)

Victorian zoologist Louis Agassiz described barnacles as “nothing more than a little shrimp-like animal, standing on its head in a limestone house and kicking food into its mouth."

Rather dismissive, no? But barnacles are fascinating creatures. For one thing, I hadn't realised they are crustaceans, related to crabs and lobsters, not molluscs.

And did you know there are over 1,000 species, all marine?

That most are hermaphroditic (having both male and female reproductive organs) and have the largest penis to body size ratio of the animal kingdom?

Unlike the adults, which are permanently fixed in place, barnacle larvae enter the water column as plankton and drift for a few weeks before settling companionably on a suitable substrate, such as rocks, man-made structures like buoys (as in my case), or even the bodies of whales and turtles. They then undergo metamorphosis into their adult sessile forms.

Barnacles anchor themselves headfirst to a surface by secreting a fast-curing cement that is among the most powerful natural glues known. In prising mine off the buoy, I couldn't avoid damaging one barnacle slightly.

They are resilient creatures, capable of surviving drying out, freezing, and large swings in salinity and temperature, which is why they thrive in intertidal zones.

Barnacles become pests when they foul (colonise) the hulls of ships, thereby significantly increasing drag and fuel consumption. By hitching rides into new areas, they may also out-compete indigenous species of barnacle.

I met Charles Darwin at the Natural History Museum, in London. As you can see, I’m a great fan.

Charles Darwin became a reluctant world authority on living and fossil barnacles after he decided he needed to establish scientific credibility. As an expert on at least one animal group, he felt he would be better able to argue and defend his groundbreaking and highly controversial theory of evolution by natural selection.

Sessile barnacles, from Charles Darwin, A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia, 1851-54.

Many barnacle species were named after Darwin (including mine, if I’m correct about the ID). Eight long years of barnacle study induced him to write in a letter in 1852:

"I am at work on the second vol. of the Cirripedia, of which creatures I am wonderfully tired: I hate a Barnacle as no man ever did before, not even a Sailor in a slow-sailing ship."

My father is a sailor in a slow-sailing ship, and I can confirm he does not hate barnacles as much as Darwin did.

A cappuccino at Down House, Charles Darwin’s home.

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Today’s Wild Minute

I'm a collector of Nature quotes or quotes relevant to Nature. Ones that give me a little adrenaline rush of recognition, that I connect with personally, or that inspire me. I hope today’s quote has meaning for you, too.

© Jessica Groenendijk

❝ Mindblowing, really: the mysterious rhythms and patternings of nature, the will-to-life manifesting itself through countless variations in form, across many scales, and the realisation that nature is far more ingenious than we are, and the world is far richer and stranger than we will ever understand.

~ Michael Smith

If you liked this post…

… you might enjoy this tale of another giant.

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