LETS HEAR IT FOR THE BARNACLES!

Barnacles are marine crustaceans (related to lobsters and shrimp) with a life cycle that ranges from funny to boring.  Our story begins when two barnacles mate and the fertilized egg (really called a “zygote”) begins to develop into a swimming larva.  The larva zips around the ocean until it finds a suitable place to settle down.  It then does a head stand and sticks itself to a rock (or your boat) using a fast-curing glue that it secretes.  It begins to transform.  It develops outer plates that make it look like a tiny volcano (at least to me).  The whole barnacle can be retracted into this volcano-shaped plated shell.  It then converts it legs into feathery feeding appendages called “cirri”.  The barnacle will open a hatch at the top of their volcano plated shell and stick their cirri out to catch food.  Basically, they are catching food with their feet.  WEIRD!  Most barnacles are hermaphrodites and have both male and female structures.  To make babies, they must receive sperm from a neighbor.  Remember, these animals have glued themselves to a rock.  There is no traveling to a coffee shop to meet a potential mate.  So, barnacles have a retractable tube containing sperm that can extend several inches over to fertilize a neighbor.  As a result, barnacles have one of the largest penis to body size ratios in the animal world.