Cirripedes - Natural history artistic poster - Ernst Haeckel, Kunstformen der Natur

Reproduction engraving of: Cirripedes

Original title Cirripedia - Rankenkrebse

Lepas Poster - Arthropods of the main class Crustacea (Order Cirripedes, Cirripedia)

Illustration from the book Kunstformen der Natur, which is a collection of artistic lithographs of natural sciences published by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel between 1899 and 1904.

This naturalistic illustration is part of an overall style inspired by Ernst Haeckel, which greatly influenced the emerging Art Nouveau movement at the beginning of the ^20th century. This work, illustrating the impressive beauty and great diversity of the biological world, was complemented by a certain amount of scientific information, some excerpts of which are reproduced below.

This information is over 120 years old and some of it may be outdated!

Scientific classification:

 Phylum of Arthropods (Articulata)
Main class of Crustacea
Shrimp Class (Caridonia)
Order of Barnacles (Cirripedia).

Scientific notice (extract) accompanying the poster print of Cirripedia - Cirripedes :

The order Rankenkrebse or Cirripedia is distinguished from other orders of the form-rich class Crustacea by the fact that they have completely abandoned free mobility and have adapted to a fixed way of life. The various stages of regression that this adaptation has brought about can be fully followed in the Rankenkrebse. First, a large part of the head, with the brain, antennae, and eyes, generally atrophies; only the mouth organs generally remain intact. The original separation of the sexes (gonochorism) evolves into hermaphroditism. Then, a calcareous shell, of a peculiar shape, develops to protect the soft body, secreted by a pair of "mantle lips" (thin skin folds on the back). In the Lepadinae (Figures 1-8), this shell is bivalved and so resembles that of mollusks (see Tafel 55) that the Lepadinae were formerly classified among these mollusks. Each of the two valves (right and left) is composed of several calcareous plates; the shell is here attached to a strong fleshy stalk, sometimes covered with calcareous scales (Figures 5-8). In the Balaninae (Figures 9-14), the shell is sessile and attached with a broad base to marine animals, rocks, or other objects. The two lips of the mantle are here fused into a tube, which secretes a calcareous shell of corresponding shape. This shell is composed of calcareous plates arranged radially (six in Figure 9-12, eight in Figure 14, and numerous in Figure 13). The soft body of the animal, enclosed in this shell, is fixed by the atrophied head to the bottom of the shell and often extends the abdomen out of the shell opening. Typically, the body (apart from the small mouthparts) bears six pairs of long, segmented legs (Figures 1-4). These are densely furnished with setae and are agitated by attached animals, creating a current to bring food and fresh water to the body. In parasitic Cirripedia, these legs atrophy completely, along with a large part of the internal organs. In parasitic Rhizocephala or "root crabs," the adult animal forms a misshapen sac containing almost entirely eggs and sperm; branching suction tubes emerge from the mouth opening and spread into the body of the host, to which the parasite is attached (see the illustration of the crab in Figure 15).

Species present on the naturalist plate of Cirripedes - Lepas :

• Lepas anatifera
• Conchoderma auritum
• Pentalasmis vitrea
• Scalpellum eximium
• Scalpellum vitreum
• Coronula diadema
• Coronula reginae
• Chthamalus antennatus
• Catophragmus polymerus
• Octomeris angulosa
• Sacculina carcini