Lepas

A global drifter project buoy washed ashore this past weekend on the island of Mauritius.

It had been drifting in circles around the southern Indian Ocean for more than two years, and as it drifted, it was colonized by goose barnacles of the species Lepas anatifra.

And what those barnacles tell us is extremely illuminating as to the mystery at hand.

These are the same barnacles that were found growing on the flaperon, that first piece of MH370 debris that washed asho- uh, ashore on the island of La Réunion in July of 2015.

No one had done the research to understand how these animals grow that would let them decipher where the flaperon had floated from.

Today, we know a lot more.

A number of scientists have published studies about the biology of Lepas anatifra, anatifra, and I've been able to collect unique data about how they actually grow while free-floating out in the deep ocean as they've evolved to do.

I talked about this in episode 52.