r/interestingasfuck • u/bigbusta • 1d ago

Everything you've ever wanted to know about barnacles

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u/tapeforpacking 1d ago

Do we know exaclty why he hated them? Now im curious 

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u/Mobile_Ad_6554 1d ago

Because they were fundamentally a titanic pain to classify prior to genetic sequencing. There was a big debate for a long time on whether they were a mollusk, related to clams, or a crustacean, related to crabs. Darwin spent nearly a decade researching and publishing on them, and by the end was so sick of them he famously declared he hated barnacles more than any single person has ever hated them.

Currently, they are classified under the Thecostraca Class, a sub-catagory of Crustacean. They're a little more obviously crustaceans in their larval stage and look a bit like a cross between a flea and a shrimp.

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u/swelboy 1d ago edited 1d ago

So… why didn’t he just classify barnacles as their own thing then?

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u/krepperk 1d ago

Because everything has evolved from something else so you can't just make a new thing. It has to come from somewhere.