Japanese goose barnacle
Amazing fact
A Japanese goose barnacle stays attached to a rock and cannot move from place to place.
宇久井ビジターセンター
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
A Japanese goose barnacle stays attached to a rock and cannot move from place to place.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Japanese goose barnacle
- Scientific name
- Capitulum mitella
- Japanese name
- カメノテ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Class
- Thecostraca
- Order
- Pollicipedomorpha
- Family
- Pollicipedidae
- Genus
- Capitulum
Where the name “Japanese goose barnacle” comes from
Its Japanese name, Kamenote, comes from its resemblance to a turtle’s hand.
天城町How the Japanese goose barnacle lives
It lives in groups in rock crevices where waves often strike. When the tide comes in, it opens its claw-like shell plates. It spreads comb-like legs called cirri like a fan to eat plankton and other particles.
宇久井ビジターセンター天城町Basic data
- Range
- Hokkaido to Okinawa and the Malay Peninsula
Where the Japanese goose barnacle has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.
Names around the world
- 日本語
- カメノテ
- 简体中文
- 龟足
- 繁體中文
- 龜足茗荷
- 한국어
- 거북손
- Français
- Pouce-pied couronne
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- 鳥羽水族館 — カメノテChecked: 2026-11-04
- 宇久井ビジターセンター — カメノテChecked: 2026-11-07
- 天城町 — カメノテ ( Japanese goose barnacle )Checked: 2026-11-07
We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.
The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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