Cornish Biodiversity Network - Supporting Wildlife Recording
The descriptive text, below the map, is from the Cornish Red Data Book (2009). The map on this web page depicts the organisms distribution and shows the records made pre-2000 and those made since.
Range & Status
The preferred habitat of Pollicipes pollicipes is on wave-beaten rocks on the open coast but, at the northern edge of its range in Cornwall, it is confined to deep crevices and underhangs where it is difficult to find. Recorded in very small numbers from the far southwest of Cornwall. Two specimens were found and collected near Land' s End in 1880 and deposited in the Natural History Museum, London. More recently, 1984, a single specimen was found in a crevice between granite rocks below Carn L\'eas Boel. In 2005 a single specimen was found on rocks between Sennen and Land' s End, later, in 2007, two more were found there. Also in 2007 three were found on rocks below Tater Du lighthouse and a further specimen in 2008 at nearby Boscawen Point. These Cornish records suggest occasional settlement resulting from a drift of larvae produced by the more abundant populations on the warmer shores of the Bay of Biscay. Outside the British Isles Pollicipes pollicipes is a Lusitanian/temperate warm species occurring from north Brittany, near Roscoff, down the Atlantic coast of France, Spain and Portugal, also north Africa as far south as Senegal. Commercial harvesting for sale has reduced the natural populations in
Spain to alarmingly low levels. Pollicipes pollicipes is on the UK List of Priority Species.
I.J. Bennallick, S. Board, C.N. French, P.A. Gainey, C. Neil, R. Parslow, A. Spalding and P.E. Tompsett. eds. 2009. Red Data Book for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. 2nd Edition.Croceago Press.
The Cornish Red Data Book Project was led by the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Federation for Biological Recorders (CISFBR). The full text and species accounts (minus the maps) are available on the CISFBR website.