Feeding of Barnacles

Abstract

AT the start of an investigation into the rate of feeding of the different species of intertidal barnacles, I was surprised to find that there was very little published information on the methods employed for the capture of food or on the organisms eaten by these ubiquitous animals. Darwin¹ noted the presence of Infusoria and Confervae in the gut as well as the remains of quite large Crustacea, and the newly settled spat have been reared on pure cultures of unicellular Algae²; but Gruvel³ and Batham⁴ have described only a macrophagous method of feeding, whereby animals that touch the extended third to sixth cirri are immediately drawn into the shell by the cirri and masticated by the mouth-parts. It is therefore interesting to report that some experiments in progress show that the adult barnacle can feed on a very wide range of organisms, from a size of 1 mm. down to 2µ.