A member of the class Cirripedia, which includes barnacles and similar crustaceans with feathery feeding appendages called cirri.
Variant spelling of cirriped, also from Latin cirrus + pes. Both forms developed in scientific terminology during the 19th century to describe these distinctive crustaceans.
Darwin spent years studying cirripedes and published four massive monographs on them—this detailed work actually helped him develop his ideas about evolution and natural selection!
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