Lepas Anatifera
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''Lepas anatifera'', commonly known as the pelagic gooseneck barnacle or smooth gooseneck barnacle, is a
species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...
of
barnacle Barnacles are arthropods of the subclass (taxonomy), subclass Cirripedia in the subphylum Crustacean, Crustacea. They are related to crabs and lobsters, with similar Nauplius (larva), nauplius larvae. Barnacles are exclusively marine invertebra ...
in the
family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...
Lepadidae Lepadidae is a family of goose barnacles, erected by Charles Darwin in 1852. There are about five genera and more than 20 described species in Lepadidae. Genera These genera belong to the family Lepadidae: * '' Conchoderma'' von Olfers, 1814 (wh ...
. These barnacles are found, often in large numbers, attached by their flexible stalks to floating timber, the hulls of ships, piers, pilings,
seaweed Seaweed, or macroalgae, refers to thousands of species of macroscopic, multicellular, marine algae. The term includes some types of ''Rhodophyta'' (red), '' Phaeophyta'' (brown) and ''Chlorophyta'' (green) macroalgae. Seaweed species such as ...
, and various sorts of
flotsam In maritime law, flotsam'','' jetsam'','' lagan'','' and derelict are terms for various types of property lost or abandoned at sea. The words have specific nautical meanings, with legal consequences in the law of admiralty and marine salvage. A ...
.


Description

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 and the peduncle varies between and .''Lepas anatifera''
Marine Species Identification Portal. Retrieved 2011-12-02.


Distribution

''Lepas anatifera'' has a
cosmopolitan distribution In biogeography, a cosmopolitan distribution is the range of a taxon that extends across most or all of the surface of the Earth, in appropriate habitats; most cosmopolitan species are known to be highly adaptable to a range of climatic and en ...
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 The North Atlantic Current (NAC), also known as North Atlantic Drift and North Atlantic Sea Movement, is a powerful warm western boundary current within the Atlantic Ocean that extends the Gulf Stream northeastward. Characteristics The NAC ...
, 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 Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...
, the
Shetland Islands Shetland (until 1975 spelled Zetland), also called the Shetland Islands, is an archipelago in Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the Uni ...
, the
Faeroe Islands The Faroe Islands ( ) (alt. the Faroes) are an archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean and an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. Located between Iceland, Norway, and the United Kingdom, the islands have a population of 54,609 ...
,
Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...
, and
Spitsbergen Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian language, Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipel ...
.


Biology

''Lepas anatifera'' is a
hermaphrodite A hermaphrodite () is a sexually reproducing organism that produces both male and female gametes. Animal species in which individuals are either male or female are gonochoric, which is the opposite of hermaphroditic. The individuals of many ...
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 Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms that drift in Hydrosphere, water (or atmosphere, air) but are unable to actively propel themselves against ocean current, currents (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are ca ...
, these settle onto floating objects.''Lepas anatifera'' Linnaeus, 1758
WallaWalla. Retrieved 2011-12-02.
''Lepas anatifera'' has long been known to grow on
sea turtle Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerh ...
s, but in 2008, some small specimens were found attached to an
American crocodile The American crocodile (''Crocodylus acutus'') is a species of crocodilian found in the Neotropics. It is the most widespread of the four Extant taxon, extant species of crocodiles from the Americas, with populations present from South Florida, ...
(''Crocodylus acutus'') on the Pacific coast of
Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...
. That crocodile species mostly inhabits
mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows mainly in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. Mangroves grow in an equatorial climate, typically along coastlines and tidal rivers. They have particular adaptations to take in extra oxygen a ...
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 An epibiont (from the Ancient Greek meaning "living on top of") is an organism that lives on the surface of another living organism, called the basibiont ("living underneath"). The interaction between the two organisms is called epibiosis. An ep ...
of a
crocodilia Crocodilia () is an order of semiaquatic, predatory reptiles that are known as crocodilians. They first appeared during the Late Cretaceous and are the closest living relatives of birds. Crocodilians are a type of crocodylomorph pseudosuchia ...
n.


Origin of the name

In thirteenth-century England the word "barnacle" was used for a species of waterfowl, the
barnacle goose The barnacle goose (''Branta leucopsis'') is a species of goose that belongs to the genus ''Branta'' of black geese, which contains species with extensive black in the plumage, distinguishing them from the grey ''Anser (genus), Anser'' species. D ...
(''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 y which he meant barnacle geese"Barnacle
American Heritage Dictionary. Retrieved 2011-12-04.


See also

*
Goose barnacle Goose barnacles, also called percebes, turtle-claw barnacles, stalked barnacles, gooseneck barnacles, are filter-feeding crustaceans that live attached to hard surfaces of rocks and flotsam in the ocean intertidal zone. Goose barnacles form ...
* Pedunculata


References

{{Portal bar, Crustaceans, Marine life Cosmopolitan arthropods Barnacles of the Atlantic Ocean Barnacles of the Indian Ocean Barnacles of the Pacific Ocean Crustaceans described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus