Lepas anatifera
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Lepas anatifera . Playa Ponzos, Ferrol (Spain) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Lepas anatifera | ||||||||||||
| Linnaeus , 1758 |
Lepas anatifera is a species of barnacles in the barnacle classthat can be found on floating debris in oceans around the world.
features
The shell-like capitulum ("little head") of Lepas anatifera reaches a length of up to 5 cm, while the purple-brown pedunculus, the flexible, muscular stem, can be between about 4 cm and much longer 80 cm long. The capitulum is surrounded by 5 smooth, translucent, red-rimmed limestone plates, which are separated by narrow gaps. The limestone plates show growth strips parallel to the edges and only weak radial sculpting. As with other barnacles, the abdomen is stunted, so that the head and thorax in particular make up the body hidden in the capitulum. The brown cirrus on the thorax is used to whirl up plankton food from the sea water.
Like other barnacles, Lepas anatifera is hermaphroditic . The crustaceans become sexually mature when the capitulum is 2.5 cm long. The eggs are fertilized by sperm from other individuals within the capitulum and remain there for about 7 days until free-swimming, pelagic nauplius larvae hatch. After a while these develop into Cypris larvae, which attach themselves to a floating object and metamorphose into a sessile adult animal .
distribution
Lepas anatifera can be found as a cosmopolitan in all temperate, subtropical and tropical oceans of floating debris . It also attaches itself to larger vertebrates such as sea turtles or crocodiles . The North Atlantic Current also brings it to colder waters where it cannot reproduce, for example off Norway , the Shetland Islands or even Svalbard .
literature
- William A. Newman: Cirripedia . In: Sol Felty Light and James T. Carlton: The Light and Smith Manual: Intertidal Invertebrates from Central California to Oregon (4th ed.). University of California Press, Berkeley 2007. pp. 475-484. ISBN 978-0-520-23939-5 .
- Steven Weinberg: Découvrir la mer Rouge et l'océan India . Paris 1996. p. 283.
Web links
- M. van Couwelaar: Zooplankton and Micronecton of the North Sea. Lepas anatifera Linnaeus, 1758. Marine Species Identification Portal .
- Patricia B. Mitchell: Goose Barnacles: Undulating Creatures