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Mr. Darwin’s Beloved Barnacles: Using Cirripedes to Understand Evolution in “Origin of Species”

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Understanding Evolution in Darwin's "Origin"

Part of the book series: History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences ((HPTL,volume 34))

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Abstract

In 1835, as a young naturalist on board the Beagle expedition exploring the delights of South American flora and fauna, Charles Darwin encountered a tiny new barnacle off the coast of Chile that he found most curious. Unlike all the usual shelled species found attached to rocks or even ship hulls, this one lived “naked,” sheltered in the crevices of seashells. “Mr Arthrobalanus,” as he dubbed the unusual little creature, continued to intrigue Darwin far beyond the initial discovery. Little did he know that some 10 years later he would embark on a 6-year-long taxonomic project that not only described and classified Mr. Arthrobalanus but also all other known cirripede species, both living and fossil. Nor could he imagine that in undertaking this endeavor, he would not only cement his reputation as an eminent naturalist but also test his developing ideas about the evolution of life on Earth. This chapter reveals how Darwin’s study of barnacles sheds essential light on many foundational evolutionary tenets laid out in his next major work: On the Origin of Species (1859).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See also Darwin Online, Richard Keynes, “Charles Darwin’s Ornithological and Animal Notes: An Introduction,” http://darwin-online.org.uk/EditorialIntroductions/Keynes_Animal_notes_Intro.html

  2. 2.

    Some of Charles Darwin’s original drawings from the Beagle voyage are in DAR 29.3: 72. Darwin Archive, Reference Code: GBR/0012/MS DAR, Cambridge University Library, Cambridge; hereafter, CUL. See also Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F1840&viewtype=text&pageseq=1

  3. 3.

    While a medical student at Edinburgh University in 1825, Darwin was introduced to marine organisms by Robert Grant and frequently naturalized along the coast of the Firth of Forth, examining marine invertebrates, especially paying attention to their reproductive systems. See Janet Browne, Charles Darwin, vol. 1: Voyaging (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995).

  4. 4.

    Darwin asked Owen, one of the leading anatomists in England, to read and criticize his description, but in the event, he did not publish a separate paper but provided a description in his 1851 monograph on the Cirripedia. In the Preface to Living Cirripedia, Darwin explained his classificatory criteria: “I have given the specific or diagnostic characters, deduced from the external parts alone, in both Latin and English. As I found, during the progress of this work, that a similarly abbreviated character of the softer internal parts, was very useful in discriminating the species, I have inserted it after the ordinary specific character” (vol. 1, p. ix).

  5. 5.

    In a letter to Louis Agassiz, thanking him for sending specimens, Darwin revealed that “when doubting whether to undertake a monograph of the class, or to confine myself to their anatomy, your sentence that ‘a monograph on the Cirripedia was a pressing desideratum in Zoology’ much helped to decide me” (Darwin Correspondence Project, letter no. 1205, 22 October 1848).

  6. 6.

    In his Autobiography, Darwin gave a similar explanation for his decision: “To understand the structure of my new Cirripede I had to examine and dissect many of the common forms; and this gradually led me on to take up the whole group.” Charles Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Including an Autobiographical Chapter, ed. Francis Darwin, 3 vols. (London: John Murray, 1887), vol. 1, pp. 80–81; also Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F1452.1&viewtype=text&pageseq=1

  7. 7.

    “Theory of sexes (woman makes bud, man puts primordial vivifying principle) one individual secretes two substances, although organs for the double purpose are not distinguished, (yet may be presumed from hybridity of ferns) afterwards they can be seen distinct (in dioecious plants in their abortive sexual organs?): they then become so relates to each other as never to be able to impregnate themselves (this never happens in plants, only in subordinate manner in the plants which have male & female flowers on same stem. —) so that Molluscous hermaphroditism takes place. — thus one organ in each becomes obliterated, & sexes as in Vertebrates take place. — ∴ every man & woman is hermaphrodite: —” See Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F373&viewtype=text&pageseq=1

  8. 8.

    As he told the Danish biologist J.J.S. Steenstrup: “You will perhaps be interested by hearing that I once found a Balanus which had had its probosciform organ cut off & healed absolutely imperforate, & yet the ova had been impregnated & contained larvae; some of the neighbouring individuals in the cluster having certainly impregnated these ova.” (Darwin Correspondence Project, letter no. 1330, 20 May [1850]).

  9. 9.

    Darwin used Pyrgoma as an example of the rule that “when the species of a genus differed in some organ or part, which is usually constant in the species of the same genus, then that one or more of the species individually varied in some degree in this same organ or character” (Darwin Correspondence Project, letter no. 1749, 24 August [1855]).

  10. 10.

    Darwin Correspondence Project, letter no. 2751, 9 April [1860]; and letter no. 2807 18 May 1860.

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  1. Professor Emerita, Department of History, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA

    Marsha L. Richmond

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  1. Marsha L. Richmond
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Correspondence to Marsha L. Richmond .

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  1. Institute of Biosciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Maria Elice Brzezinski Prestes

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Richmond, M.L. (2023). Mr. Darwin’s Beloved Barnacles: Using Cirripedes to Understand Evolution in “Origin of Species”. In: Elice Brzezinski Prestes, M. (eds) Understanding Evolution in Darwin's "Origin". History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences, vol 34. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40165-7_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40165-7_8

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