Gooseneck barnacle

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Gooseneck barnacle
Pollicipes cornucopia
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Subphylum: Crustacea Class: Cirripedia Order: Pedunculata Family: Scalpellidae Genus: Pollicipes and Lepas

Gooseneck barnacles are filter-feeding crustaceans that lives attached to hard surfaces of rocks and flotsam in the ocean intertidal zone. They are easily recognizable by their distinctive long and muscular stalk, which is edible and is considered a delicacy in several Mediterranean countries..

Some species of gooseneck barnacles are pelagic and are most frequently found on tidewrack on oceanic coasts. Unlike most other types of barnacles, intertidal gooseneck barnacles depend on water motion rather than the movement of their cirri for feeding, and are therefore found only on exposed or moderately exposed coasts. In Spain and Portugal they are known as percebes and there is a percebes festival in Galicia (on Spain's Atlantic coast) every summer. Every year people are drowned as they try to collect the delicacy from wave-washed coves. Goose barnacles are generally steamed in their shells above stock or seasoned wine and served hot at the table. The taste is similar to crab claws. They are also particularly favoured in Donostia in the Basque Country.

In the days before it was realised that birds migrate, it was thought that Barnacle Geese, Branta bernicla, developed from this crustacean, since they were never seen to nest in temperate Europe, hence the scientific and English names. The confusion was prompted by the similarities in colour and shape. Because they were often found on driftwood, it was assumed that the barnacles were attached to branches before they fell in the water. The Welsh monk Giraldus Cambrensis claimed to have seen goose barnacles in the process of turning into barnacle geese in the twelfth century.

Close-up, Moss Beach, California, low tide

Lepas anserifera, Bophut, Ko Samui, Thailand