The footage highlights why the use of explosives to dispose of whale carcasses is discouraged by local councils, as the detonation resulted in overwhelming smells of rotten whale filling the local area, and large chunks of whale flesh being launched into the air and damaging vehicles parked 400 metres away. Last year a video posted on Youtube documented the grisly - and sudden - release of methane gas from a whale carcass that had been decomposing off the coast of Tomales Bay, California. Another video captured the loud sounds heard from two sperm whale explosions on the beach of Ameland island in the Netherlands in 1997. As they grow, barnacles develop tough, pointed shells to protect their soft bodies. These shells dig into the whale's skin, ensuring a secure grip. Inside, they have tube-shaped structures that help them anchor firmly to the whale. I​t can be hard to tell, though—like many other crustaceans, barnacles barely ever move. The hard shell they build hides their delicate bodies from view.

Organisations around the world have used various methods to deal with the giant carcasses before they become an injury risk, with varying degrees of success.Whales and barnacles share a relationship called commensalism. The barnacles benefit the most, hitching a ride on whales for protection and food. Meanwhile, they don't harm the whales. It's a one-sided, harmless free ride. The idea was inspired by the fact that the calcite plates that make up barnacle shells grow by depositing new material at the base. This leaves 'tree-ring' like growth layers that preserve a chemical and temperature signature of the waters in which the barnacles are growing.

Kidadl provides inspiration to entertain and educate your children. We recognise that not all activities and ideas are appropriate and suitable for all children and families or in all circumstances. Our recommended activities are based on age but these are a guide. We recommend that these ideas are used as inspiration, that ideas are undertaken with appropriate adult supervision, and that each adult uses their own discretion and knowledge of their children to consider the safety and suitability. Barnacles and whales are involved in a relationship that is called commensalism. This means that one party benefits from the relationship while the other remains completely unaffected. Barnacles start as small larvae in the sea. Many marine biologists believe that barnacles sync up their breeding time with that of whales. So, when whales gather in warm, shallow waters, barnacle larvae grab the chance to latch onto them, making the whale's skin their new home. https://propspeed.com/media/news/news-item/2021/01/18/what-exactly-are-barnacles-anyway#:~:text=Because%20they%20are%20filtering%20organisms,food%20source%20for%20these%20animals Scientists aren’t sure exactly how barnacles attach themselves to whales, but most experts believe they attach themselves within the first couple of weeks after their birth when they are still very small. When whales move towards the bottom of the sea to feed on schools of fish, they slow down, allowing the free-floating barnacle larvae to hitch a ride.However, if whales are covered in hundreds or thousands of barnacles, they may become uncomfortable. In such large quantities, the barnacles may also increase the drag a whale experiences as it swims through the water, slowing it down. Are barnacles on whales alive? Barnacles are small sea creatures related to crabs and lobsters. They're one of Earth's oldest species, and you can tell just by looking at their simple design. Barnacles generally don't harm whales, so there's no need to remove them. However, if there are too many, they might irritate the whale skin. When barnacles dig in, they can sometimes scrape off the top layer of the whale's skin. But the relationship isn't purely one-sided. Though it might seem like barnacles get a free ride, they're not just lounging around. They aren’t draining any energy from the whales, and in a surprising twist, these tiny critters might just play the role of unexpected protectors. Their hardy shells can serve as a shield for whales against potential sea threats. When I started this job 25 years ago, you might be looking at 500 to 600 strandings a year, but now we are looking at 1,000,” said the CSIP project manager Rob Deaville, one of the experts who conducted postmortem examinations on July’s mass stranding.

The acorn barnacle is the most common type you'll find, and it's usually round with six hard, fused plates made of calcium. Whale barnacles are a kind of acorn barnacle. Their soft bodies poke out from the center, shielded by extra top plates that can open and close to keep their insides safe. These shells are calcium deposits that cover up the barnacles’ soft bodies. The barnacles slough off and replace these shells as they grow. Because it’s hard to study barnacles who are living on whales, it’s unknown exactly how big they grow to be. Are barnacles harmful to whales? Rendering, which is increasingly being used in the UK, involves separating cetacean remains into pieces, boiling them down and combining them with alcohol to create biodiesel.They feed by filter-feeding or suspension-feeding, capturing small food particles from the water they pass through. Researchers came up with three possible reasons why this might have happened: Either the whales were being aggressive, they were trying to help the dolphins in some way, or they were just playing around. The financial and practical difficulties of moving a dead whale, which can weigh between 1 and 40 tonnes, are heightened by the potential for the decomposing carcass to become explosive. Keep reading to learn more about what barnacles are. We’ll also discuss why they live on whales, if they bother them, and how the whales can get rid of them. Why do whales have barnacles on them? The team's 211 minutes of video footage and whale tag data processed by researchers at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center captured a total of 27 remoras at 61 locations on the whales overall, finding that the remoras were most often podding and traveling between three of the most hydrodynamically beneficial spots where separating flow and wakes are caused by the whale's distinct topographical features: directly behind the blowhole, next to and behind the dorsal fin, and the flank region above and behind the pectoral fin.