| STRIPED GOOSENECK 
              BARNACLE Conchoderma virgatum (Spengler, 1790)
 Anna Curtis 
              sent me this photo of a barnacle she found on a dive boat mooring 
              float off west Oahu. I sent the photo to barnacle expert William 
              Newman at the Scripps Institute. He replied: 
 It's Conchoderma virgatum, and it belongs to the ancestral 
              line that gave rise to the rabbit eared barnacle of whales, C. 
              auritum, and while usually found on floating objects (fishing 
              floats, boats, buoys etc.) it also occurs of turtles, swimming crabs, 
              spiny fishes (attached where skin has been damaged, or to parasitic 
              copepods on fish) and also cetaceans.
 The 
              species occurs worldwide in warm waters. |