My Deep-sea Fishery

Fang Youqun scratched his head, "In my impression, barnacles have always been a delicacy. How come they become terrible animals in your mouth?"

Chen Qingsheng snorted, "That's because you are ignorant."

Xiang Yang interrupted: "Actually Fang Youqun is right, barnacles are indeed a delicacy."

Barnacles like to grow in the crevices of reefs where ocean currents exchange more frequently. These places that are often submerged in seawater are often very slippery, which is very unfavorable for picking.

Even so, those barnacle hunters will still risk their lives to catch the sea. They will wear non-slip shoes and use ropes and other tools to use the gap between low tide and the next high tide to pick this delicacy from hell in the exposed reef crevices. Because the price of barnacles is really very high.

Especially gooseneck barnacles.

The area where gooseneck barnacles grow can be regarded as a forbidden zone for humans, and the picking process is extremely dangerous and difficult to pick.

Seeing that Xiang Yang helped him, Fang Youqun immediately became proud, "Let me just say, barnacles are scary."

Xiang Yang looked at Fang Youqun, "Do you know what creatures in the ocean can kill adult sea turtles?"

Fang Youqun shook his head, expressing that he didn't know.

Xiang Yangdao: "There are not many marine creatures that can kill adult sea turtles, and the most common one is undoubtedly barnacles."

"Um?"

Fang Youqun was taken aback for a moment, and then immediately reacted, "How is this possible? I know that barnacles are parasitic on whales and sea turtles, but you can see that there are so many parasitic barnacles on Datou, isn't it different?"

Xiang Yang shook his head and said: "Whales have relatively large bodies with rough skin and thick flesh. Being parasitized by some barnacles will not pose a major threat to their survival, and whales will clean up some barnacles out of instinct, and the attached The number of barnacles is relatively limited, but for sea turtles that are much smaller than whales, have a slow metabolism, and have low energy intake, barnacle parasitism often kills them."

Under normal circumstances, barnacles such as turtle barnacles and Minghe prefer to parasitize on slow-swimming turtles.

The joint between the turtle shell and the meat is the most suitable place for barnacles to grow.

In October 2017, a marine zoologist found a green sea turtle parasitized by many barnacles in the northern waters of the South my country Sea, and one of the barnacles even grew on its forehead.

Barnacle parasitism has also been found in other sea turtles washed ashore.

Some sea turtles are so densely parasitized by barnacles that people can get goose bumps at a glance. The whole body is parasitized by barnacles, densely packed with bumps and bumps, and it is completely impossible to recognize it as a sea turtle.

Sea turtles are parasitized by barnacles, which will directly increase the weight of sea turtles, and the barnacles growing in bumps will also increase the resistance of sea turtles to swim, reducing their swimming speed. Sea turtles not only need to waste more energy traveling with barnacles, look for food.

And in the ocean world where big fish eat small fish, the chance of being predated by natural enemies also increases.

Therefore, the turtles parasitized by a large number of barnacles have simply suffered a catastrophe.

"Of course, these are the natural selection of nature, there is nothing to talk about."

"The bottom line is that the impact of barnacles on humans, especially on fishing boats, is enormous."

When a large number of barnacles "settle down" on the surface of docks, ship bottoms, submarine optical cables, etc.

The harm of barnacles to human activities will become very large.

Taking ships as an example, after more and more barnacles are attached to the bottom of the ship, it will increase the weight and resistance of the hull, which will not only increase fuel consumption, but also deepen the draft of the hull and increase the risk of hitting rocks.

Taking Xiang Yang as an example, in order to reduce the loss and risk of the fishing boat when he sails next time, he has to spend money to hire someone to clean up the barnacles on the bottom of the boat after returning to port this time, which is really not a worry-free thing.

Chen Qingsheng lowered his head and thought for a while, then suddenly said: "Captain, when you go back to ask someone to clean it up, it's cleaning up. Now we clean it up by ourselves, anyway, we're idle now. Why don't I take people off the boat and remove the vines at the bottom of the boat?" Let the pots be cleaned up."

Xiang Yang looked at Chen Qingsheng, "I just went down to look, and there are a large number of barnacles on the bottom of the boat. This is not a small project."

"It's okay." Chen Qingsheng said: "Don't care about the number of them, just give me an iron chisel, and I'll chisel them all off."

Xiang Yang nodded and said, "Okay, I'll go down with you."

Soon, Xiang Yang and Chen Qingsheng went down to the bottom of the sea with a dozen crew members.

The barnacles on the whale are difficult to get off, because many of the barnacles on the whale grow their meat into the whale's body, and they attach to the whale's body like screws.

The barnacles on the bottom of the boat are much easier to clean.

The bottom of the fishing boat is made of metal, and it is very thick. Xiang Yang is not afraid that the iron chisel will cut through the bottom of the boat. When he sees a total of barnacles, he can just chisel down.

Of course, Xiang Yang knew that his way of manually cleaning up the barnacles was a relatively backward cleaning method.

In fact, the easiest way to clean up barnacles is to rinse them with a high-pressure water gun.

The bottom of ocean-going fishing boats is extremely strong, and barnacles cannot be directly rooted like whales, so it is easy to wash them off the boat with a high-pressure water gun.

In this way, it seems that the barnacles are not that harmful to humans. After all, they are not an unsolvable threat.

Not so.

What barnacles really pose a threat to ships is not weight and resistance at all.

After the barnacle is attached to the ship, it will produce a strong acid corrosion product, which will erode the bottom of the ship when it reaches a certain amount, causing the bottom of the fishing boat to rust, and even directly corrode the bottom of the ship. This is human The number one reason to really hate barnacles.

Therefore, when fishermen clean up barnacles, they seldom clean them by themselves. They usually send them to the dock for cleaning.

After cleaning the barnacles on the bottom of the ship, the shipyard also needs to clean the rust on the bottom of the ship, then polish and polish it, and finally apply thick anti-rust paint and anti-fouling paint.

At present, in some top shipyards in the world, in order to prevent barnacles or other marine organisms from approaching the bottom of the ship, a layer of toxic substances such as copper oxide and mercury oxide are also applied to the bottom of the ship when painting.

These highly toxic substances will slowly seep out on the seafloor, preventing the increase of marine life to a certain extent.

However, as the bottom paint of the ship peels off, a large number of marine organisms will slowly adhere to it, so the bottom of the ship must be cleaned after a period of time to ensure the normal operation of the ship.

This is also the real reason why the barnacles on the bottom of fishing boats cannot be eaten.

In fact, these cylindrical barnacles on the bottom of the ship are also non-toxic, and the toxin comes from the anti-barnacle poisonous paint.