Darwin and Barnacles
Illustration of Darwin studying barnacles.
Copyright John JoyceDarwin and Barnacles
Copyright John Joyce
Copyright John Joyce
Darwin and Barnacles
Illustration of Darwin studying barnacles.
Copyright John Joyce
The first person to fully study and classify barnacles was the world-famous biologist Charles Darwin published a series of scientific papers on them in 1851 and 1854, before he published his groundbreaking book – On the Origin of Species.
Some historians have suggested that Darwin studied barnacles as a way of putting off work on his great study of evolution. But it has been shown more recently that he studied barnacles at the recommendation of his friend Joseph Dalton Hooker so that he could understand at least one species of animal in depth in order to test his theories about natural selection and the natural world in general.