Stunned with strange creatures like coming from aliens

Looks like a creature from the alien monster movies, but in fact the strange creature you see is conchoderma auritum - rabbit ears. This is a species of the upper mandibular class…

Looks like a creature from the alien movies, but in reality the strange creature you see is conchoderma auritum - rabbit ears. It is a species of maxillopod in the gooseneck family Lepadidae. They are common in the waters of Europe, Africa and New Zealand.

Conchoderma auritum is quite large, up to 13 cm long. They have a slimy head, a transparent, pink skin. The upper part has 2 appendages that look like 'rabbit ears', each "ear" has water filter valves, the mouth has many hard legs to filter food, The rest of the body can be attached to whales or underneath boats, landmarks, and rocks in the sea.

Picture 1 of Stunned with strange creatures like coming from aliens

Rabbit ears.

As in the video above, you can see them clinging to the bottom of a ship, still alive, and the legs sticking out and indenting look very scary.

Picture 2 of Stunned with strange creatures like coming from aliens

Baby Coronula.

Conchoderma auritum is also known as Humpback Whale Goose-Neck Barnacle because they often cling to this whale species.

In fact, they cling to the shell of another species of barnacle called Coronula (white shell in the image above), which commonly parasitize whales. Sometimes there are up to 50 Conchoderma auritum on the same Coronula shell.

Picture 3 of Stunned with strange creatures like coming from aliens

Picture 4 of Stunned with strange creatures like coming from aliens

Update 13 May 2022
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