A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 2 of 2): The Balanidæ, (or Sessile Cirripedes); the Verrucidæ, etc., etc.Darwin, Charles
Science
A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 2 of 2): The Balanidæ, (or Sessile Cirripedes); the Verrucidæ, etc., etc.
Darwin, Charles
Balanidae; Cirripedia
larger than on this side of the Atlantic.
[80] Since the note to page 5 of that work was written, I have been
informed that the so-called cretaceous _Tubicinella maxima_ is not
a Cirripede.
Under the genus Balanus, I have given my reasons for never naming
species in this large and difficult genus, without examining the
opercular valves: it has been owing to this, as it appears to me,
proper want of caution, that there are so many nominal species. Thus
it is made to appear in catalogues, that the tertiary seas abounded
with species of Balanus to an extent now quite unparalleled in any
quarter of the world. Bronn,[81] for instance, in his invaluable
'Index Palæontologicus,' gives the names of 35 Balani, found fossil in
Europe, and I have not counted those found only in alluvial deposits,
as they would certainly be the same as the still living species. Now
I know only 11 recent Balani on the shores of all Europe, from the
North Pole to lat. 30°; and of these I doubt whether _B. balanoides_
and _improvisus_ have been found fossil. In the Red Crag there is one
extinct Balanus: in the Coralline Crag, which seems to have been very
favorable to the existence of Cirripedes, there are six species of
Balani, of which two are absolutely extinct, and one does not occur
in any neighbouring sea: in the Eocene formations the species seem to
have been rare, and I have seen only one, and that is an extinct form.
Taking these several facts into consideration, and bearing in mind
that Cirripedes usually range widely, I do not believe, if all the
specimens of Balani hitherto found in the several tertiary formations,
from the eocene to the glacial deposits, throughout Europe, were
collected together, they would amount to 20 species. I have myself
seen, in a recognisable state, only 12 fossil species, of which five
are extinct, or not found in any neighbouring sea: I think it probable
that three other recent species, viz. _B. tulipiformis_, _perforatus_,
and _amphitrite_, may occur in the Mediterranean formations; and this
would make 15 species. Therefore in the above estimate of 20 species,
five are allowed for species existing in European collections,
but not hitherto seen by me; and this, I believe, is a very full
allowance. Consequently, even on the supposition that the five
species just admitted as possibly existing in cabinets, and that the
other five extinct species, which I have seen and examined, have all
been previously named by other authors, a supposition excessively
improbable, even then there would be 15 superfluous names in Bronn.
[81] To save any other person, interested in fossil Cirripedia,
going through the several works quoted by Bronn, I have given some
remarks on his list of species, in an appendix at the end of the
Balanidæ.
The following short table shows how Cirripedes, including all three
Families, were represented in Great Britain, throughout the several
TERTIARY STAGES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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