1. Lepas is the most familiar cirripede found attached to floating seaweeds, logs, turtles and ships. It is a planktonic filter feeder.
2. These are cosmopolitan. Specifically found on pacific coast, North of San Francisco, Bay of Fundy to hatch from them.
3. Commonly called as goose barnacle or ship barnacle because barnacle geese were once thought to hatch from them.
4. Animal is composed of bilaterally compressed vermiform and unsegmented body, the capitulum and a peduncle.
5. Peduncle or stalk is much narrower than the rest of the body and without scales. The peduncle is long and stout and acts a hold-fast organ.
6. Body is flattened and covered by calcareous plates consisting of a pair of scuta at the stalk end, a pair of small terga at the opposite end, and a median dorsal carina lying along the hinge.
7. Capitulum encloses the viscera and itself encased in a bivalve carapace in which above plates are embedded.
8. Six pairs of cirriform many-jointed, biramous thoracic appendages.
9. Mouth is ventral and anterior end is provided with mandibles and two pairs of maxillae.
10. Hermaphrodite but having cross fertilization.
Source:
1. Practical Zoology Invertebrates by S.S.Lal. 2. A Manual of Practical Zoology Chordates by Dr. P.S. Verma.
