Goose barnacles, also called stalked barnacles or gooseneck barnacles, are filter-feeding crustaceans that live attached to hard surfaces of rocks and flotsam in the ocean intertidal zone. Goose barnacles formerly made up the taxonomic order Pedunculata, but the group has been found to be polyphyletic, with its members scattered across multiple orders of the infraclass Thoracica.
Goose barnacle
Lepas anatifera in Thailand
Gooseneck barnacles reaching down from the top of a tidal cave in Oregon
"The goose-tree" from Gerard's Herbal (1597), displaying the belief that goose barnacles produced barnacle geese.
Barnacles are arthropods of the subclass Cirripedia in the subphylum Crustacea. They are related to crabs and lobsters, with similar nauplius larvae. Barnacles are exclusively marine invertebrates; many species live in shallow and tidal waters. Some 2,100 species have been described.
Barnacle
Whale barnacles on a humpback whale
Nauplius larva of Elminius modestus
Cypris larva of Amphibalanus improvisus