Bitch: On the Female of the Species

by Lucy Cooke

The barnacle’s sedentary life is a boon for personal safety, but less so for sex: locating a mate isn’t exactly easy when you’re glued to a rock. Darwin discovered the barnacle’s secret weapon is an extravagant penis, the longest relative to body size in the animal kingdom. Darwin’s customary functional prose takes an almost giddy turn as he describes how the barnacle’s ‘probosciform penis’ is ‘wonderfully developed’ and ‘lies coiled up, like a great worm’ but ‘when fully extended, it must equal between eight and nine times the entire length of the animal!’. Such frivolous length is purely functional. It enables the barnacle to cruise the neighbourhood for sex, whilst remaining cemented to the spot head first.Like a sort of X-rated Mr Tickle. It helps that most barnacles are simultaneous hermaphrodites. Every individual has both male and female reproductive organs so they can fertilize and be fertilized by all of their neighbours. And if there’s no one else within reach, as a last resort the barnacle can recall their roving inseminator and fertilize themselves.