About Dosima fascicularis (Ellis & Solander, 1786)
The buoy barnacle, Dosima fascicularis, is a species of goose barnacle. It has a unique characteristic: it hangs downward from a buoyant appendage that drifts on the water surface, carried along by ocean currents. This species is considered "the most specialized pleustonic goose barnacle", since most other barnacle species are sessile filter feeders that stay permanently attached to hard surfaces. It was formerly classified in the genus Lepas, but it is now generally placed in the separate genus Dosima. Dosima is distinguished from Lepas by the shape of the carina, and by the unusual thinness and brittleness of this species' exoskeleton. D. fascicularis has a cosmopolitan distribution, and prefers temperate seas. It has been recorded at latitudes ranging from 71° North off the coast of Siberia to 57° South near Cape Horn. Groups of this species have been observed traveling from Japan to the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Individuals sometimes wash ashore on westerly and southerly beaches in the British Isles, and on westerly beaches further south in Europe. It is not normally found in the Mediterranean Sea, but may have started to colonize the region from the Atlantic Ocean.
