A visitor to a popular seaside town made a startling discovery and soon learnt it could be worth a lot of money.
Chevaun Hands shared a photo of a peculiar “roll” of seaweed and shells spread out over a beach in Blackpool over the weekend, and commenters on Facebook were quick to point out it may be a valuable find.
A number of people on the platform said the shells appeared to be gooseneck barnacles, a rare species served up as a delicacy in countries like Spain and Portugal, as per Manchester Evening News.
The prized crustaceans have been known to wash up on British shores following storms. In 2022, a roll of barnacles of similar size appeared on a beach in Gwynedd, in the northwest of Wales, and was said to be worth a whopping £4,000.
Goose barnacles live attached to various surfaces including rocks, ships, ropes or floating flotsam, according to The Wildlife Trusts.
Also known as gooseneck barnacles, they’re identifiable by their long fleshy stem that resembles a black neck.
At the top of the stem, or “peduncle” is a chalky white shell which contains the main body of the barnacle.
According to the organisation, goose barnacles are closely related to crabs and lobsters and “filter feed on plankton and detritus, capturing it from the water with their specially adapted legs.”
It was once thought that barnacle geese hatched from them when no one had ever seen a barnacle goose nest or lay an egg before.
Connections were drawn between the appearance of the goose barnacle shell and the barnacle goose’s head.
It was assumed that the geese must grow attached to ships before emerging and taking to the skies.
A similar species, the buoy barnacle or lepas fascicularis, floats attached to a spongy “buoy” of its own making rather than attaching to objects and is purple in colour.