You’ll see lots barnacles on your coastal adventures in Pembrokeshire, here are some of our top facts about them.
All the milky coffee coloured dots on the rocks all around the coast line are barnacles. These are a type of arthropod crustacean related to crabs and lobster.
Baby barnacles start life simply put as a one eyed larva, with bristles to swim.
Most of the barnacles at Abereiddy are ‘acorn barnacles’ essentially they are attached to rocks by their foreheads and dangle their arms and legs in the water catching microscopic plankton as it floats past.
Barnacles can be traced back to living 510 million years ago (Middle Cambrian age). Although there isn’t much fossil evidence of them due to the high-energy zone they live in they are more often than not eroded into sands.
You can actually eat them! In Spain and Portugal the goose neck variety of barnacle are found to be a delicacy.
On our coasteering sessions you can get up close and personal with them and we can show you why we love them. Ask you rGuides for a memorable fact about barnacles, you’ll be surprised and not forget it!!
