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Friday, February 3, 2017

Red-and-white revisited

Remember Paraconcavus pacificus, the red-and-white barnacle that grows on sand dollars?  I wrote about them in September 2016 (see posts from 25 September and 27 September).

Well, we're still encountering a few of these southern barnacles here and there.  Below is a recent examplean individual found washed up on Salmon Creek Beach tonight (3 February 2017):



On the bottom, you can still see a small remnant of the skeleton of a sand dollar attached to the base of this barnacle:


We're still very interested in any sightings of this barnacle north of San Francisco.  If you spot one, let me know!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello! I have been a reader of your blog for quite a while, and I feel that you may be qualified to answer a question, perhaps make a whole post about it.

How does a barnacle grow? Aren't a barnacle's plates cemented to its basal plate, and never shed (unlike its exoskeleton)? If so, how does it increase in size?

Jackie Sones said...

Hi! Thanks for the question! We have some ideas about how to describe and illustrate barnacle growth. It might take a little time to pull together a post, but I hope we can share something within the next few weeks. More soon!

:) Jackie

Hollis said...

Hey Jackie - recently found two more on sand dollars while doing surveys on No Salmon Creek (just north of the creek) on Mar 3 (nice cluster!) and again on So Salmon Creek on Mar 7.

Hollis