What are barnacles
What are
barnacles?
-
Barnacles
(balanus glandula) are sticky little crustaceans related to
crabs, lobsters, and shrimps.
How barnacles spend most of
their lives?
Imagine spending most of your life standing on your head and
eating with your feet! Sound like a difficult way to get through the day? Well,
that's exactly how barnacles spend most of their lives.
Where you can found barnacles:
·
At
water depths to 600 m
Life Stages of Barnacles:
·
Nauplius
swims freely like zooplankton in the water, molting many times before becoming
cypris.
2. The
cyprid:
·
Cypris attaches itself to its new spot by its
antennas.
·
Within
12 hours of attachment we now have a mature barnacle with a shell.
What barnacles eat?
·
They
comb the water for microscopic organisms.
·
Barnacles
feed on plankton.
How Barnacles Eat?
Barnacles have appendages called cirri. They reach out into the water and grab food particles like a scoop net. When the cirri are drawn back, the food is scraped off into the mouth.
Barnacles have appendages called cirri. They reach out into the water and grab food particles like a scoop net. When the cirri are drawn back, the food is scraped off into the mouth.
More about Barnacles:
·
Barnacles
are thought to be one of the oldest surviving creatures on the planet as they
are believed to date back millions of years.
·
The
barnacle slides two of its six plates across to let water in when it is feeding
and then closes them again which prevents the barnacle from being too exposed
to dirty water.
·
Most
barnacles are hermaphrodites, meaning that they have both male and female sex
organs.
Reference:
1-
Serial
EM analysis of a copepod larval nervous system
2-
courses.washington.edu
3-
Barnacles:
Structure, Function, Development and Evolution
4-
Martin
Walters & Jinny Johnson (2007). The World of Animals.
7-
a-z-animals.com
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق