---
title: Striped Barnacle (Amphibalanus amphitrite)
scientific_name: Amphibalanus amphitrite
common_name: Striped Barnacle
taxon: Barnacles
published: 2026-08-07T11:51:31.101Z
updated: 2026-08-07T21:13:11.639Z
tags: Striped Barnacle, Amphibalanus amphitrite, Barnacles, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/crustaceans/barnacles/striped-barnacle
---

# Striped Barnacle (*Amphibalanus amphitrite*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Barnacles (*Cirripedia*)
- **Size:** up to 2 cm
- **Depth:** 0-10 m
- **Diet:** Filter feeder
- **Activity:** Cathemeral
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Hard surfaces in the shallows: jetties, hulls, mooring lines

## How to recognise it

- conical white shell with fine purple or brown vertical stripes
- grows in dense crowded sheets
- on jetty legs, hulls and ropes rather than on reef
- diameter up to 2 cm

A small conical barnacle to about 2 cm (0.8 in) across, its white shell marked with fine purple or brown vertical stripes, growing in crowded sheets on anything hard and man-made in the shallows: jetty legs, mooring lines, buoys, boat hulls. On natural reef it is scarce; on a pier piling there may be thousands.

That preference has carried it around the world on shipping, and it is now one of the most widespread fouling organisms anywhere - the single species most responsible for the drag that makes hull cleaning a permanent expense. The larva swims freely, tests a surface with chemical sensors on its antennae, then cements itself head-down using a protein glue that sets underwater and holds against wave force, a material that has been studied for decades by people trying to copy it. Once fixed it never moves again. Feeding is done by kicking the legs out through the shell opening and drawing them back in - a rhythm that quickens when the water carries more food.

## Also known as

- **English:** Striped Acorn Barnacle, little striped barnacle, striped barnacle
- **German:** Kleine Streifenseepocke
- **Dutch:** Paarsgestreepte zeepok
- **Japanese:** タテジマフジツボ
- **Russian:** Полосатый морской жёлудь

## Scientific synonyms

- *Balanus amphitrite* Darwin, 1854
- *Balanus amphitrite saltonensis* Rogers, 1949

## Range

Adriatic Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Ionian Sea, Mediterranean Sea - Western Basin, New Zealand

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/crustaceans/barnacles/striped-barnacle)*
*Updated: August 7, 2026*