Barnacles: The Forgotten Species

Article | Updated 5 years ago

Imagine spending most of your life standing on your head and eating with your feet. Sounds impossible? Well, that’s exactly how barnacles spend most of their lives.

What are barnacles

Found clinging onto rocks, boats and dock pilings, barnacles are often mistaken for molluscs due to their shell-like covering. But guess what? They’re actually crustaceans, which means they’re close relatives of lobsters, crabs and shrimps. These creatures mostly live in the intertidal zones, peeking out only during low tides. Barnacles are filter feeders, and use their long feathery feet to trap food particles such as plankton.

Andrew Hosie, Western Australian’s Museum resident expert and curator of crustacea and worms, studies these species in detail. This involves surveying the biodiversity of crustaceans in Ningaloo and the Kimberley region.

One of the species he studies is the goose-neck barnacle, which are also called stalked barnacles… clearly a name derived from its characteristic muscular stalk.
 

Goose-neck barnacles are treated as delicacies in countries like Spain and Portugal. They are high-priced meat, going for as much as $500 per kilo. Its steep price is due to the danger and hard work that goes into harvesting these species from intertidal areas. Its chunky, muscular stalk is the most sought after part of a barnacle.  

Key points:

• Barnacles are not molluscs. They are crustaceans, closely related to lobsters, crabs and shrimps.
• These species are delicacies in countries like Spain and Portugal – a phenomenon which has yet to hit Western Australia.
• They feed on ocean plastics, and this has direct and indirect implications on our ecosystems and humans.
   

Being filter-feeders, these barnacles feed on about almost anything that it can get its feathery feet on. This includes the increasing amount of plastics and microplastics being dumped into our oceans. Rubbish in our oceans provide barnacles with more substrates to attach to and feed on. As forgotten species, barnacles are underestimated of their ability to contribute to the ecosystem.

Imagine this- microplastics from the products we use get flushed into our oceans, and become food for our ocean friends. Though small, these microplastics then end up accumulating in species such as the goose-neck barnacles. And they make their way back into our diets.   

How we dispose of our rubbish, especially plastics, has to be given attention. Our actions have ripple effects on our ecosystems and well-being. How we choose to interact with our oceans- on a micro and macro scale has long-lasting effects. Every small change has the potential to contribute to healthier, cleaner oceans, for all living organisms, from the underappreciated barnacles to the charismatic whales, to us humans.

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Siti Mutaza – Science Communication Practicum
University of Western Australia Student