198 



Fishery Bulletin 90(1), 1992 



B 



Figure 1 



Sessile barnacles Xenobalanus globieipitis on a bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncattis, 

 caught in the Bay of Bengal, India. (A) Small barnacles on flippers. (B) Adult bar- 

 nacles on tail flukes. Barnacles from the left fluke were removed prior to photographing; 

 however, shell remnants are visible. 



WBP 



Figure 2 



External measurements of the ses- 

 sile barnacle Xenobalanus globiei- 

 pitis. TL = total length, WB = 

 width of body, WBP = width of 

 basal plate, WH = width of hood. 



(1916) reported that these barnacles grow in close 

 groups. This aggregation permits cross-fertilization, 

 which is common in hermaphroditic crustaceans 

 (Barnes 1986). 



Xenobalanus globieipitis occurs on about 19 species 

 of cetaceans, from the small harbor porpoise Phocoena 

 phocoena to the large blue whale Balaenoptera mus- 

 culus (Table 2). The present record is the seventh 

 report from a bottlenose dolphin. Six previous reports 



were from the central Atlantic 

 coast of the United States (True 

 1891, Mead and Potter 1990), 

 Gibraltar (Dollfus 1968, Pilleri 

 1970), and the east coast of 

 South Africa (Barnard 1924, 

 Ross 1984). 



Based on a review of the lit- 

 erature, Rappe and Waerebeek 

 (1988) suggested that X. globiei- 

 pitis is an inhabitant of tropical 

 and warm-temperate waters. 

 They reported that occurrence of this species in the 

 northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean is erratic, 

 possibly related to sporadic incursions from adjacent 

 tropical warm-temperate waters. Their information 

 was based on only 23 reported localities. Our study 

 shows 87 localities (Table 2) reported for X. globieipi- 

 tis: 28 (32.2%) are located north of 40°N; 27 (31.0%) 

 between 35° and 40°N; and 32 (36.8%) between 30°N 

 and 30°S. From this it is clear thatX globieipitis is 



