Almost by meaning, barnacles are stable: these shellfishes cluster on surface areas such as whale heads, sea turtle shells, coastal rocks, and ship hulls. A 2008 paper described an exception in barnacle immobility in the turtle barnacle Chelonibia testudinaria. All sorts of fascinating things going on.Recorded Chelonibia testudinaria barnacle movement on plexiglass platecourtesy of Benny K.K. Chan and Jri-Chi LinTS: When you were observing these barnacles in the aquariums, were there any difficulties that occurred with the experiments?JZ: We had to figure out how to get them connected to surface areas in the laboratory.
A 2008 paper described an exception in barnacle immobility in the turtle barnacle Chelonibia testudinaria. The Scientist: What interested you in studying animal mobility?John Zardus: I was initially interested in barnacles that live on other animals. My genuine question was, how did these barnacles discover the host that they have to live on? I addressed, No, no, barnacles do not do that. All sorts of intriguing things going on.Recorded Chelonibia testudinaria barnacle movement on plexiglass platecourtesy of Benny K.K. Chan and Jri-Chi LinTS: When you were observing these barnacles in the fish tanks, were there any difficulties that occurred with the experiments?JZ: We had to figure out how to get them connected to surface areas in the lab.