Biology Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for biology researchers, academics, and students. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
We found this on a beach in North Devon, UK. I've never seen anything like it.
There's a yellowy-ball in the middle with 5 pointed shells attached to it, each of which seems to have a single "leg" coming out of the bottom. It almost looks like it's 5 separate creatures feeding on something, but they're pretty firmly attached. Perhaps it's some sort of egg-sac that they're growing from?
Does anyone know what this is?
You have a Dosima: Also known as a Buoy Barnacle. A gallery of observations of these can be found here:
https://inaturalist.ca/taxa/462188-Dosima/browse_photos
They are found in the coastal UK and Spain area, New Zealand, and east and west N.America:
(source: iNaturalist observations)
These barnacles attach themselves to things that float, and if they don't have access to one, they will grow one themselves. Your image looks like five individuals attached to a central float that one of them (or a dead relative) constructed.
