Editor@gomag.co.za

ELNA GERINGER from Port Edward writes: I recently found this cigarette lighter in a rock pool on Palm Beach during low tide. Barnacles had grown around the base and their brown “hairs” were waving in the water.

Marine expert GUIDO ZSILAVECZ says: These are goose barnacles. They use a fleshy stalk to attach themselves to anything solid that floats in the open sea. Currents and winds move these floating structures around; every now and then they land up inshore, as is the case here.

The brown appendages are the legs of the barnacles, which they use to feed. Each leg has fine filaments that function like a net: The barnacle moves its legs around underwater to catch food and bring it to its mouth inside the shell.

The name “goose barnacle” comes from an ancient myth that barnacle geese (a type of goose that mainly breeds on Arctic islands in the North Atlantic) hatched from the shells of goose barnacles. Barnacle geese breed at high latitudes so people didn’t really see them laying eggs, and the fleshy stalk of the barnacle reminded people of a goose’s neck.