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Description: | Specimen of a fossil crustacean (barnacle) Balanus sp., encrusting a bivalve, Cyrena sp., collected from unspecified rocks of Tertiary, Eocene or Oligocene age from Bembridge, Isle of Wight, Hampshire (SE England). Barnacles encrusting bivalve.
Barnacles are a special type of crustacean (the same group of animals as crabs and lobsters). They are able to live in areas where the sea waves beat against the rocks. They live cemented (stuck) to rocks or the shells of bivalves and other animals on the sea floor. Cyrena is a bivalve shellfish that lived in a burrow. After the bivalve died its two shells separated. The barnacles then grew on the empty shell. Both animals fed on tiny food particles that they filtered out of the sea water.
The specimen was found in Hampshire.
It is from the Tertiary period (65 - 1.8 million years ago) | Publisher: | Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums | Subjects: | Classification: Animalia Invertebrata Crustacea Arthropoda | Temporal: | Tertiary period (65 - 1.8 million years ago) | Source: | Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums | Identifier: | http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/geofinder/se... | Go to resource |
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