Barnacles are among the clingiest of creatures, but how they manage to stick so tenaciously to surfaces is unclear.
When Jaimie-Leigh Jonker of the National University of Ireland, Galway, and her colleagues examined the barnacle Lepas anatifera, they found that its adhesion system is radically different from that of other clingy sea creatures, such as mussels and tubeworms. Large, single-cell glands in L. anatifera secrete a clumpy substance filled with sticky proteins, although exactly how the glue works remains mysterious.
Researchers hope that future studies of barnacle glue will yield better adhesives, particularly for medical applications.
J. Morphol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jmor.20067 (2012)
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Why barnacles stick around. Nature 489, 8 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/489008a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/489008a
