Buoy barnacle1
Dosima fascicularis, the buoy barnacle, is "the most specialised pleustonic goose barnacle" species. It hangs downwards from the water surface, held up by a float of its own construction, and is carried along by ocean currents.
D. fascicularis has a cosmopolitan distribution, with a preference for temperate seas, having been found at latitudes from 71° North off Siberia to 57° South near Cape Horn. Groups have been observed journeying from Japan to the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean, and sometimes wash up on westerly and southerly beaches in the British Isles, as well as westerly beaches further south in Europe. It is not normally found in the Mediterranean Sea, but may have begun to colonise there from the Atlantic Ocean.
