On the taxonomic status and distribution ofChthamalus stellatus(Cirripedia) in the north-east Atlantic region: with a key to the common intertidal barnacles of Britain

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Abstract
During his studies on the Cirripedia Darwin (1854) gave much attention to the Chthamalidae, and his views of the species remained unchallenged for many years. Darwin's attitude to speciation appears to have been coloured by his concurrently developing theories of natural selection, and he was especially interested in the existence of wide variationwithinspecies. ThusChthamalus stellatusas described by Darwin consisted of a number of races or varieties, and was of almost worldwide distribution (‘southern England, Ireland, Isle of Man, Mediterranean, Madeira, Cape Verde Is., southern United States, West Indies, Brazil, Rio Plata, Red Sea, Philippines, China, Gulf of Korea, Oregon or N. California’). This distribution has been considerably narrowed in the last 60 years, and recent investigators have raised varieties to specific rank, or described new species and subspecies. In North California and Oregon we now have the full speciesC. dalli(Pilsbry, 1916); along the eastern coast of U.S.A. we now haveC.fragilis(Pilsbry, 1916); in the Caribbean and along the east coast of South America we haveC. angustitergumandC. bisinuatus(Pilsbry, 1916; Ross, 1969; Southward, 1975); for the Indopacific region there are now the speciesC. challengeriandC. malayensis(Hoek, 1883; Pilsbry, 1916); and in the Mediterranean,C. depressus(Poli), which was reduced by Darwin to a variety ofC. stellatus, has been raised again to specific rank (Barnes, 1956; Utinomi, 1959; Southward, 1964; Klepal & Barnes, 1975) and is now assigned to the genusEuraphia(Newman & Ross, 1976). Thus except for a few dubious records what remains of Darwin'sC. stellatusis confined to Europe, N. Africa and W. Africa (Southward, 1964; Stubbings, 1967). Nevertheless, even such a reduced distribution encompasses several distinct climatic zones, and seems more extensive than the individual ranges of the three species (C. dalli, C. fissusandC. panamensis) found in comparable climatic regions of the N.E. Pacific.

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