How much does a sea acorn balanus cost (average price for 1)?
The sea acorn balanus or Balanus belongs to the genus Crustaceans. A feature of this type sea acorns is an almost immobile lifestyle. The sea acorn balanus attaches to a hard, most often rocky, surface. Yours original name sea acorns or balanuses were obtained thanks to the characteristic shape of the barnacle shell, which resembles the shell of the nut of the same name.
Translated from Latin language the species name balanus sounds like an acorn. Modern science About 60 species of sea acorns are known. In addition to the officially established scientific name Balianus sea acorns are called barnacles, tulips or truffles. Sea acorns are also known as Persebes or Pollicipes.
Due to the presence of shells, barnacles are often mistakenly classified as mollusks. If adult individuals of balanus lead a sedentary lifestyle, young crustaceans live freely in the thickness of sea water. Largest quantity various types Sea acorns are common in seas located in tropical, temperate and subtropical climates.
Balanus crustaceans attach not only to rocky surfaces, but also to the bottoms of ships, as well as to other inhabitants depths of the sea, for example, whales or crabs. The basis of the diet of the sea duck is plankton. It is noteworthy that this type Crustaceans can survive painlessly without food for about a month.
The sea acorn balanus has been used for culinary purposes since time immemorial. IN industrial scale sea ducks are caught off the coast of Spain, as well as Portugal and Morocco. Large specimens of balanus, which reach 20 cm in length, are used in cooking. This type of seafood, quite exotic for our latitudes, is especially popular and in demand in countries with access to the sea.
Most often, sea acorns are boiled and used in the preparation of fish and seafood soups. In addition, crustacean meat can be part of the so-called sea cocktail. Excellent taste characteristics has baked sea duck meat. Professionals and seafood connoisseurs claim that the taste of balanus meat combines the characteristics of shrimp as well as lobster.
In the Mediterranean region, balanus are eaten in fresh, this means that the seafood has not been pre-heated. Tender meat of crustaceans is extracted from the core of the shell, which is eaten with sauce from olive oil and vinegar.
It is worth noting that the cost of balyanus sea acorns makes it possible to classify these seafood as delicacies. It is no coincidence that Balyanus are called sea truffles. Often the cost of one kilogram of freshly caught crustaceans reaches 400 Euros.
Caloric content of sea acorn balanus 80 kcal
Energy value of sea acorn balanus (Ratio of proteins, fats, carbohydrates - bju):
: 0 g (~0 kcal)
: 0.1 g (~1 kcal)
: 0 g (~0 kcal)
Energy ratio (b|w|y): 0%|1%|0%
Sea acorns are relatives of spiders and other crustaceans.
They lead an attached lifestyle and, with the help of feathered, jointed limbs, filter food from the water.
Appearance
The diameter of the crustacean does not exceed three cm; the shell consists of 4-6 calcareous plates (depending on the species), which in young individuals are colored White color. Over time, the sea creature's shell becomes overgrown with grayish algae.
These marine organisms that live in clean waters and in open areas, the shells are tall, while those living in protected areas are flatter.
The shell valves are held together and controlled by strong muscles. When the muscles contract, the limbs are hidden in the shell flaps, and the opening in the shell is closed.
During low tide, the animal tightly closes the shell flaps. The limbs are long, whip-like legs that force water and food particles into the shell. When the tide comes, the crustaceans are immersed in water, they open a hole in the shell and stick their legs out.
Habitat
Sea acorns live on rocky sea coasts almost all over the world.
Lifestyle
In appearance, sea animals look like mollusks, however, despite the deceptive appearance, they belong to the order “Crustaceans”. Inside its home, with its back side down, there is a crustacean similar to a cross.
The thoracic section of crustaceans has six pairs of biramous legs. With their help, animals get their food. To do this, during low tide they stick them out of the house, straighten them like a fan and make characteristic waves with them. At the moment of olive oil, the crustacean closes all four valves, so it is protected from drying out even when the shell is exposed to wind or sun.
The shell of a sea crustacean consists of four or six calcareous plates. The shells of young crustaceans are colored light color, however, with age their color changes, becoming grayish-yellow.
This is due to the fact that the surface of the shell is overgrown with microscopic algae. Sheer cliffs At first glance, the cliffs are completely lifeless, but they are inhabited by sea acorns. The rocks are located in the tidal zone, literally dotted with them. On many coasts sea inhabitants form a continuous white stripe, clearly visible from a distance.
Nutrition
Adults lead an attached lifestyle, so they cannot exercise active search food. Much of their diet depends on what the tidal waters bring them. At the moment when the water covers the acorns’ heads, the crustaceans try to open the shell valves and stick their limbs out.
They try to quickly wave them in the water, pumping water into the cavity of the house, and eat the edible particles that enter their body along with the water.
The modified legs make up to 40 strokes per minute, driving water into the particles suspended in it into the cavity of the house. They can also only feed when they are washed by sea water. Therefore, individuals that settle further from the coast feed better than their counterparts, who prefer the intertidal zone, where they remain on the surface for a certain time.
Sea crustaceans, constantly washed by water, grow faster, but they do not live long.
Reproduction
Sea acorns are hermaphrodites, that is, each individual has female and male genital organs. However, fertilization involves two neighboring individuals. Single acorns are sterile.
Animals of this species transfer sperm to their partner through a long tube, and fertilized eggs are stored in the mantle cavity for several months. During this time, floating larvae called nauplii develop from the eggs. The eggs develop within 4 months in the womb of the marine organism, and then larvae emerge from them.
The emergence of larvae from the mantle cavity depends not on water temperature and calendar dates, but on the time when large quantities microscopic algae develop - the main food of nauplii.
For a month they swim with plankton, carried by sea currents. During this period, the larva molts six times and reaches the stage of a cyprisoid larva with a bivalve shell. At this stage of development they do not eat, they are carried along by the current for some time, and once in good conditions, settle to the bottom and attach to the substrate using antennas. Sea acorn larvae settle in dense groups
Related species
The order of barnacles, like the related order of copepods, belongs to the class of crustaceans.
Lifespan
This type of marine organism wildlife lives no more than 4 years.
Security status
Sea acorns are very sensitive to pollution sea waters. Heavy metals accumulate in his body, mainly lead, so their presence or absence in this region is an accurate indicator of environmental pollution.
- These marine animals settle on any hard surface, so they can often be found on sea vessels, shells sea turtles, clam shells, crab backs and even on starfish, brittle stars and whales.
- Most of these marine organisms become prey for whelks. Trumpeters also hunt mussels.
- Sea acorns settle in large colonies, one square meter underwater part of the rock, you can find up to forty-five thousand individuals of these barnacles.
- The shape of their houses is determined by the degree of density of their settlement and some other factors.
The barnacles, which include the sea acorn, are remarkable in many respects and do not look like crayfish.
As adults they lead sedentary image life, attaching to all sorts of underwater objects - rocks, stones, piles, the bottoms of ships. The body of the barnacles is enclosed in a hard limestone house, consisting of individual plates. Some of these plates are movably connected to each other, so the crustacean can push the plates apart and insert the thoracic legs into the resulting gap from time to time, making characteristic movements. At the same time, water with planktonic organisms is driven inside the house. This is how nutrition and breathing are carried out.
The presence of a hard shell and a sedentary lifestyle have long forced scientists to classify these animals as mollusks. Only by discovering a barnacle larva, similar in structure to other crustaceans, did scientists find out that these animals belong to the class of crustaceans.
Where do sea acorns live?
“As long as you live your time, a lot of all sorts of dirty shells stick to our sides” - Mayakovsky used this metaphor when comparing human life with the life of the ship. And indeed, imagine that a newly built ship leaves the harbor and begins sailing. Its speed is known, it fits well into the schedule. However, the movement is slowing down every day. More and more time and fuel are spent covering the same route. Why is this happening? The bottom of the ship is overgrown with various marine animals, forming thick layers, as a result, friction with the water increases and speed decreases.
The basis of fouling on ships is made up of barnacle crustaceans - sea acorns.
They settle not only on ships. Coastal rocks and stones are strewn with them, they attach to mollusk shells, to crab shells, settle on the skin of whales, on whalebone and even on the teeth of sperm whales, on the sides of fish and other most incredible objects found under water. Sea acorns look like a small white cup consisting of several “petals”. Inside the calyx, a cone of several valves is visible, shaped like a tooth. The valves of this tooth are capable of opening, and the legs of the crustacean protrude through the resulting hole.
At the bottom of such a house, securely closed with very hard doors, the crustacean itself lies on its back. The front of his head is tucked under the body so that the antennae are in the middle of the “sole.” Rear end The head is enlarged, so the acorn's mouth is turned upward. The crustacean, sticking its legs covered with long bristles out of the house, straightens them like a fan, and then folds them. These movements create a flow of water directed inside the house. The food of sea acorns is quite varied due to the fact that the legs are covered with bristles of varying thickness: they sit more often on the front legs, and less often on the hind legs. As a result, different legs filter out particles different sizes. Sea acorns eat algae, bacteria, and many other small planktonic creatures, most notably their relatives, the copepods. They also swallow their own larvae, but the adult larvae of sea acorns are not digested by their parents and come out unharmed.
Since the crustacean has all its adult life spends inside the house, he does not need well-developed senses, but some of them remain. Sea acorns are able to distinguish light from darkness with the help of a single primitive eye. Of course, crustaceans don’t care at all whether it’s day or night, and that’s not why they preserved their peephole. With its help, acorns react to instantaneous changes in illumination, i.e. notice a shadow falling on their shell, but it could also be from a predator. Just in case, they quickly retract their legs and close the doors of the house. If you shade the shell of an acorn with a constant frequency for a long time, the crustacean stops reacting to this stimulus; it gets used to the fact that the shadow does not indicate danger. Among sea acorns there are species in which addiction occurs at different intervals. The more “fearful” crustaceans do not “believe” for a very long time that they are not in danger, while the more “brave” ones quickly get used to not reacting to shading. In nature, sea acorns orient their houses so that the entrance to it is directed towards the light. If the larvae settle unsuccessfully, the crustacean is able, at the very beginning of its sessile life, to slightly turn the house so that the light falls directly into its “window”. This, however, does not limit the requirements of sea acorns when choosing the position of the house. They try to place their home so that the entrance is directed towards the currents. Then the constant flow of water brings in more food particles. Some acorns are so “lazy” that they generally stop waving their legs to force water into the sink, but sit motionless, hanging their bristly legs like a net towards the current.
Reproduction of sea acorn
Most species of sea acorns are bisexual organisms, but self-fertilization is not common among them. The crustaceans manage to mate without leaving home, with one individual acting as a male and the other as a female. Such marriages are possible only in settlements where acorn houses are closely adjacent to each other. The copulatory organ of sea acorns is very long and is able to reach the neighboring house to transfer sperm there. crustaceans living in all alone, capable of self-fertilization. Fertilized eggs are covered in a common chitinous shell and stored in the cavity of the house.
Sea acorns spend their early childhood in much the same way as their relatives - other crayfish. Having hatched from the egg, the larva leads a free lifestyle, molts several times and turns into a larva with a bivalve shell. It is always slightly open, and the legs of the crustacean stick out from it, with the help of which it swims. After some time, the larva settles and settles on permanent residence, attaching to the substrate with short anterior antennae. Reliability of attachment is ensured by the adhesive secretion of cement glands. The larva sheds its temporary bivalve shell and begins to build a reliable, durable home around itself.
Incredible facts
Men are often concerned about whether their manhood adequate length and width, can they satisfy a woman, and most importantly, does size matter?
And although many representatives of the stronger sex would like to have even more impressive size penis, it would be difficult for them to compare with the organs of some animals.
Animal genitals: the largest penises
Here are 7 animals with the most large sizes penises relative to body size
Blue whale
The blue whale boasts the largest penis on Earth. The average size penis blue whale ranges from 2.4 to 3 meters. The exact size is difficult to determine, since the size of the erect penis of a blue whale can only be observed during copulation.
However, relative to the size of its body, the blue whale's enormous penis is fairly average. The blue whale's penis-to-body length ratio is 1:10, while the average male ratio is 1:12.
Ostracod Colymbosathon ecplecticos
It's small ancient creature has such a large penis that even his Greek name Colymbosathon ecplecticos translates to "amazing swimmer with a big dick." When archaeologists discovered fossils of this creature in 2003, they were quite surprised by its manhood.
The ratio of the length of the penis to his body was 1:5. Translated into a human, this ratio would mean a penis size of about 38 cm. In addition, the creature had very long sperm – about 1 cm, while the size of the creature itself did not exceed 5 mm.
African elephant
Penis size African elephant reaches up to 2 meters. The ratio of penis to body size of this mammal with great dignity is 1:4 or about 45 cm in humans.
Deep sea squid Onykia ingens
These squids live at a depth of 3000 meters, and the size of their genital organ reaches almost the length of its body. The ratio of penis length to body units is 1:1. And one caught 38-centimeter squid was observed to have an erection in which penis size reached 67 cm.
banana slug
Banana slugs reach about 25 cm in length, with a penis to body ratio of 1:1, which means that the length of their dignity is almost the same as that of a person.
Moreover, banana slugs are hermaphrodites. Each of them has a penis located on the side of the head, with the help of which they can impregnate each other and become pregnant.
Argentine duck
Although ducks are not known for having large penises, there is one member of the duck family whose penis size is larger than that of any vertebrate on the planet. The Argentine duck boasts a penis that is twice as long as the bird's body. The average size of the bird is about 20 cm, while the length of the penis reaches 42.5 cm.
How does this animal move with such a large organ? The whole point is that the male dignity of the duck has spiral view. Moreover, females have a long, spiral-shaped vagina that curls in the opposite direction, helping her prevent fertilization, as males tend to forcefully copulate.
sea acorn
These sessile crustaceans can change the size of their genitals depending on their environment. They have the most big penises relative to their body size, reaching ratio 40:1. Because most the time they spend on the stone, they grow a long penis to increase the chances of fertilization.
Among the most famous and, probably, better than others hidden from the human eye are crustaceans - barnacles , or sea acorns (Cirripedia).
They are the only ones of all their relatives who lead a sedentary lifestyle. They usually attach to rocks, shells, corals and the bottoms of ships. When too many sea acorns collect on the bottom, it interferes with the ship's progress and it loses speed.
Although acorns prefer to settle in shallow waters and in the tidal zone, it happens that they even attach to whales and big fish. Motionless, protected by a multi-plate shell consisting of calcium carbonate, sea acorns hide in it and freeze during low tide. But once again in the water, the crustacean looks out of the shell, sticking out six pairs of long legs, with the movements of which it filters the water, catching food particles - microorganisms. Its legs sway rhythmically, attracting plankton. The sea acorn does not have gills, and its legs also absorb oxygen from the water. This crustacean's single eye is probably only able to distinguish between light and dark.
Sea acorns can often be seen on rocks and cliffs at low tide. In addition, they settle on large marine animals - such as this gray whale.
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