<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="1" > review </h1>
Do you know the sea? When we talk about the beasts in the ocean, many people will first think of the great white shark with a large mouth open in the blood basin, or the largest mammal in the world at present - the whale.
But in fact, many whales have a more docile personality, and even become the plate of many marine creatures, even if they are fierce killer whales, they cannot be called the first overlord of the ocean. After all, everything in the world is mutually exclusive.
killer whale
There is such a creature, which looks weak and harmless, but in fact, it will cause a lot of trouble to many famous creatures in the sea, and even sometimes it will cause headaches for humans. It's a barnacles.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="5" > delicious gooseneck barnacles </h1>
When we talk about barnacles, many people who live by the sea recall the experience of pulling barnacles from the reef as children. Often put on the table is the gooseneck barnacles.
In fact, gooseneck barnacles have many other names, such as sea chicken feet, bergamot snails, etc. From a biological point of view, it belongs to the turtle barnacles family. Its appearance makes people think that it is a shellfish, but it is actually an arthropod. It has a stalk and a muscular stem, and is called a gooseneck barnacle because it resembles the neck of a goose.
Barnacles structure
This barnacles are mainly grown in areas that are often submerged by seawater, and can only be picked after low tide and before high tide.
And because this area is relatively wet and slippery, it is very difficult to pick. People who want to get such a delicacy will take a lot of risks, like wandering in the forbidden area of the world, so barnacles are also called "hell seafood".
Wang Anshi once said that the most magnificent and beautiful things in the world are in dangerous and distant places. It grows in "Hell" and also has a taste that surpasses other seafood, and is especially popular among the crowd because it is too delicious. As long as there is a market, there will be people selling it.
At this time, there are many "barnacles hunters". Hunters will arrange some safety measures in advance and wait for the tide to recede. They pulled on the ropes, wore non-slip shoes, and raced against the clock.
Barnacles are extremely difficult to pick
Because the picking of gooseneck barnacles is too difficult, the market has been in short supply, so the price has been very high. China's gooseneck barnacles can be sold for 400 yuan a pound, like Spain in Europe, a pound of gooseneck barnacles can reach 277 US dollars.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="13" > the growth of parasitic barnacles </h1>
Such a delicious barnacles will make many large marine creatures feel frightened? In fact, this barnacles are not barnacles.
Barnacles that grow along the coastline don't actually bother the creatures too much. What really pains marine life is their relatives, the whale barnacles, the hidden whale barnacles, and the barrel-crowned whale barnacles.
They're social creatures, so you won't see a single barnacles wherever you are, and it feels like bamboo as we often talk about.
Barnacles are social creatures
Barnacles are a metamorphosed organism, which means that at each stage of its growth it will be very different from the previous stage.
First they go through the stage of arthropods, where they are very small, like dried shrimp. They float around in the sea, have no place to live, and don't even have a solid shell to protect them. If whales and returnees are smart enough, they can actually strangle them in the cradle so as not to breed tigers.
Barnacles in the arthropod stage have been floating in the ocean for a long time, and gradually grow into adenophiles, and they will also begin to want a stable place to live. Barnacles are born with the outstanding advantage of "being able to pick a house".
Barnacles are arthrophyllal stages
When faced with a brand new residence, they do not rush to take root, but stay on it briefly with their tentacles, slowly observing whether it is worth living in for a long time. After a while of investigation, if they are satisfied, they will secrete a very viscous liquid to stick themselves firmly to it. If they feel that this place is not suitable for long, they continue to drift and find a new place to live.
When the adenoma is selected in the right place to settle down, it will begin a second metamorphosis. At this time, it had a hard armor and turned into a mature barnacles.
Mature barnacles
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="22" > parasitic life of barnacles </h1>
Barnacles have many hard requirements for attachment points. For example, the attached place should be damp, but it must be rough enough, otherwise it is not easy to take root.
The speed of the water flow will also affect their home, if the water flows too fast, they may be washed away, if the water flow is too slow, they will face the problem of food shortage. So they often parasitize on reefs because reefs are wet enough and rough enough. Sea turtles, which swim slowly and have rough surfaces, are the most ideal places for barnacles.
sea turtle
Barnacles belong to a special type of hermaphrodite creature, so their reproductive ability is particularly strong. Once they have chosen a place to take root, they will begin to breed wildly, and a large number of barnacles are attached to a place, and they have their own community.
Of course, there are many types of barnacles, and they also have their own preferences for attachment points. Some like sea view rooms, so they like the reefs and cliffs of the coastline, watching the sun rise in the east and set in the west, and the tide rises and falls. Some prefer RVs, so they attach to the bodies of large marine creatures, the happy journey is theirs, and the pain is parasitic.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="28" > whale collision </h1>
A ship is sailing in the ocean when it encounters a surprise attack by a whale. Many people don't understand why whales risk losing their lives to provoke humans. In fact, they do not harbor malice toward human beings, but they really can't stand it. They are deeply troubled by barnacles.
Whales ramming ships
In fact, scientists have always found it strange that the speed of whales moving in the ocean is not slow, and how do barnacles that are still in the glandular larvae catch up with the whales?
To this end, scientists have invested a lot of time and energy, and they have still not been able to successfully observe the parasites of adenomycotes. Marine biologist John Zardus once speculated that this may be related to their breeding period.
The breeding period of whales and the breeding period of barnacles have a high degree of overlap. Whales gather in large numbers during the breeding season, and this is also the time for barnacles to develop and reproduce, so they have many opportunities to meet in the sea.
Barnacles on whales
If you see a whale, its original black back has a lot of strange markings. You don't suspect that they have some kind of ringworm skin disease, or that they have provoked corals, they are just parasitized by barnacles.
Once the barnacles intend to settle on the whale, they will unequivocally "lay the foundation". They also form a barb structure during metamorphosis, and the whale's skin is pierced by them, directly into the fat layer.
The parasitic ability of barnacles is very powerful. Once a whale is parasitic, it is difficult to break free, just as a fish is always hooked by a fish hook, and it is generally difficult to escape.
To what extent is the barnacles parasitically strong? Many biologists wanted to collect specimens of barrel-crowned whale barnacles from whales, but they found that samples could only be obtained by cutting off the whale's flesh together.
Barnacles are parasitic and firm
Imagine that we people would be very painful to be pricked by needles, not to mention barnacles with barbs, densely packed. Once a whale is parasitized, it faces great suffering. They sometimes choose to bask in the sun, as the sun's exposure can limit barnacles from growing and multiplying.
But this method undoubtedly wounded the enemy eight hundred and lost a thousand. If the whale is exposed to the sun for a long time, the body will crack, and the barnacles will be too much to parasitize even the wounds.
So when the whales can't stand it, they will hit the ship, hoping to clean the barnacles on their bodies in this way and alleviate their pain.
Relieve the pain by crashing into a boat
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="41" > turtles that are in pain</h1>
In fact, for whales, barnacles bring only a kind of trouble, but for turtles, the parasitism of barnacles is a devastating blow.
We all know that whales are huge, so for whales, barnacles cause skin trauma that does not affect important parts of the body. But the turtle is much smaller than the whale, the damage of the barnacles is likely to be fatal, and the sea turtle swims very slowly, the whale can at least rely on speed to find a way to alleviate the pain, but the turtle is helpless.
The joints of the turtle's head, flesh and shell are the favorite parasitic sites for barnacles. In 2017, a green turtle was found on the Ryukyu Island of Taiwan. When marine biologists saw it by the sea, they found that it was parasitized by barnacles in many places, and its head was not spared.
Barnacles on turtles
Many of the turtles that were then washed up by the waves were more or less covered with barnacles. Some turtles have so dense barnacles that they have changed their faces.
The skin of these turtles is encroached upon by barnacles, and their own weight is greatly increased. This makes it more difficult for turtles to march through the sea, and they need to expend more energy to forage for food. Once you encounter a predator, you will not be able to escape with your wings.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="47" > crab slave </h1>
Crab slaves are also a kind of barnacles, but it is more terrifying than other barnacles, they like to live on crabs, and even anti-guest- and control the crab's behavior.
crab
We sometimes see a yellow bulge in the belly of a crab, which is not the fat crab yellow we want, but the crab slave. In the process of parasitizing the crab, the crab slave will gradually remove its hard armor and then pierce the crab's body with a needle-like structure.
Such structures will continue to grow in the crab's body, like a tree taking root in the ground, they will absorb nutrients from various parts of the crab's body and control their behavior.
At this time, the crab slave can be said to be no longer a crab slave, and the crab is a "crab slave". They rob the crab of its nutrients, which are difficult to grow and whose reproductive glands are damaged, preventing them from reproducing.
Crab slave hermitage
But the crab slaves clung to their own reproduction. They will choose to lay eggs outside the crab's body, so that their water bag-like eggs will hang on the crab's belly, yellow, and make people think that it is the crab yellow of the crab. And the parasitic object chosen by the crab slave will not be male and female, so whether it is a female crab or a male crab, there will be egg bags hanging on the abdomen.
What's even more outrageous is that the female crab will protect the eggs of the crab slave well, just like her own children. In comparison, male crabs are much more irritable. The crab slave will control the hormones of the male crab at this time, so that the male crab has the same characteristics as the female crab. In this way, the male crab becomes the female crab, and their personality will also undergo a certain change.
The ovaries mature, meet male crab slaves, and become fertilized eggs. At that time, the crab will be manipulated to release the larvae of the crab slave, and it will be a new reincarnation.
Crab slave hermitage process
Marine biologists once separated crabs from crab slaves. They were surprised to find that the female crab was freed from the control of the crab slave and the reproductive system would be revived. But the male crabs can't change back to their original appearance, and even have ovarian tissue on their bodies.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="57" > conclusion </h1>
Barnacles not only parasitize marine life, but also make marine life miserable. It also gives humans a lot of headaches. Because barnacles are also distributed in large areas on the ship, the ship will consume more fuel to move forward. Many fishermen have to put a lot of effort into cleaning them up every time. Once, a fisherman was accidentally scratched while cleaning barnacles, and as a result, barnacles grew on his hands.
In order to avoid the poison of barnacles, many fishermen choose to coat the bottom of the boat with some toxic substances, so that the barnacles will stay away from the boat. However, toxic substances will harm other marine life and cause damage to the marine ecology, which is not a long-term solution.
Barnacles at the bottom of the boat
How to get human beings out of the barnacles is also a difficult problem that experts need to solve.