{"id":1356,"date":"2008-10-31T08:13:17","date_gmt":"2008-10-31T12:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=1356"},"modified":"2008-11-02T17:41:25","modified_gmt":"2008-11-02T21:41:25","slug":"foul-play-on-the-docks-starring-barnacle-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=1356","title":{"rendered":"Foul Play on the Docks Starring Barnacle Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Beautiful Rainbow of Fouling Critters<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As proven in\u00c2\u00a0every crime drama, beauty can be lethally deceptive.\u00c2\u00a0 So it is, too,\u00c2\u00a0on the docks of Cape Cod and the SouthCoast of Massachusetts.\u00c2\u00a0 From a blurry distance as seen through thick estuarine water, fouling communities enwrapping marine structures appear rainbow beautiful.\u00c2\u00a0 So different from our youthful memories when docks were adorned with less colorful, but much more productive and edible species, today the waterfront is\u00c2\u00a0dominated by exotic critters that are gourmet delicacies only in the avant-gard restaurants of the very, very Far East.<\/p>\n

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Click Here to View Video in High Quality<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Fall Fouling Community Visual Survey in Sippican Harbor<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A quick visual survey of the fouling community along\u00c2\u00a0Tabor Academy’s\u00c2\u00a0Hoyt Dock (above) showed a large variety of exotic critters:\u00c2\u00a0 tunicates (Botrylloides diagensis<\/em>) and\u00c2\u00a0club tunicates (Styela clava<\/em>), hydroids (Obelia geniculata<\/em>), red bearded sponges (Microciona prolifera<\/em>), worms, crumb of bread sponge (Halidrondria panacea<\/em> or Halidrondria bowerbanki<\/em>), and barnacles (Balanus balanoides<\/em>), among others.<\/p>\n

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Summer\u00c2\u00a0Fouling Community Sample from Sippican Harbor<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A sample collected from the same dock in summer shows\u00c2\u00a0an even\u00c2\u00a0greater variety of species.\u00c2\u00a0 We will address many of these species in future posts, especially the exotic and invasive tunicates.\u00c2\u00a0 For today’s story, we focus on the Northern Rock Barnacle, a ubiquitous animal within the inter-tidal zone.<\/p>\n

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Grayish White “Barnacle Zone”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Barnacles inhabit rocky shores, forming a grayish white “barnacle zone.”\u00c2\u00a0 They’re found among inter-tidal fouling communities in harbors and protected embayments.\u00c2\u00a0 You find them on rocks, docks, piers, pilings, oysters, clams, shells, hermit crabs, whelks and really any hard, permanent surface.\u00c2\u00a0 They also live on more\u00c2\u00a0mobile surfaces such as boat bottoms, turtles, whales and horseshoe crabs.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Northern Rock Barnacle (Balanus balanoides)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Let’s start with the confusing stuff.\u00c2\u00a0 What we think of as the barnacle isn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 The barnacle is actually a shrimp-like, soft bodied animal that stands on its head and extends its\u00c2\u00a0six pairs of\u00c2\u00a0“feet” (called “cirri”) to catch food like a cast net.\u00c2\u00a0 What we think of as the barnacle is the animals “home” and consist of a hard, many plated shell composed of calcium carbonate that is affixed to a hard, permanent substrate with\u00c2\u00a0a natural\u00c2\u00a0superglue.\u00c2\u00a0 This barnacle glue has been researched extensively because it’s extremely strong, sets quickly under water,\u00c2\u00a0withstands high pressures, resists both high acidity and alkalinity … and is completely natural.\u00c2\u00a0 What baby-boomers wouldn’t give to have barnacle glue for their dentures!<\/p>\n

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Click Here to View Video in High Quality<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Northern Rock Barnacles Cast “Feet”-Net to\u00c2\u00a0Snare Food<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As you can see in the video clip, the top plates of the barnacle’s home open for feeding and the animal, standing on its head, casts out its six pairs of feet (cirri) into the shape of what seems like a cast net to capture food particles.\u00c2\u00a0 They\u00c2\u00a0consume zooplankton such as copepods and phytoplankton such as diatoms.\u00c2\u00a0 When the “net” is drawn back,\u00c2\u00a0food is scraped off the cirri into the animal’s mouth.<\/p>\n

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Barnacles Scraped from Boat Bottom & Scavenged by Seagulls<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Those top plates close tightly to seal the soft-bodied animal inside and to protect\u00c2\u00a0it from succumbing to desiccation during low tide and from being attacked by predators.\u00c2\u00a0 Predators include dogwinkles (dog whelks), seastars, marine worms, fish, and periwinkles that consume small barnacles.\u00c2\u00a0 Humans eat large barnacles, scrape them from the bottoms of their boats and docks, and add fouling paint to keep them away.<\/p>\n

Fun factoid:\u00c2\u00a0 Barnacles are crustacean just like crabs and lobsters, but that still won’t entice\u00c2\u00a0us to eat them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beautiful Rainbow of Fouling Critters As proven in\u00c2\u00a0every crime drama, beauty can be lethally deceptive.\u00c2\u00a0 So it is, too,\u00c2\u00a0on the docks of Cape Cod and the SouthCoast of Massachusetts.\u00c2\u00a0 From a blurry distance as seen through thick estuarine water, fouling communities enwrapping marine structures appear rainbow beautiful.\u00c2\u00a0 So different from our youthful memories when docks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[824],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1356"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1445,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356\/revisions\/1445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}