• dantheclamman@lemmy.worldM
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    10 days ago

    Darwin did extensive work on barnacles, and wrote to his cousin WD Fox in 1852:

    I am at work on the second vol. of the Cirripedia, of which creatures I am wonderfully tired: I hate a Barnacle as no man ever did before, not even a Sailor in a slow-sailing ship.

    But in 1855, he felt nostalgia for them, and wrote to Fox:

    all nature is perverse & will not do as I wish it, & just at present I wish I had the old Barnacles to work at & nothing new

    • Drusas@kbin.run
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      10 days ago

      I grew up on the northeast coast of the US. All the boats that sat for even a couple of weeks at a time would get covered in barnacles. Fuck barnacles, right?

      I live by the northwest coast now. All of the boats that sit for a couple of weeks get covered in mussels. Fuck mussels, am I right? (And you can’t even eat them because of where they’re growing!)