Austromegabalanus psittacus

The picoroco (Austromegabalanus psittacus) is a barnacle crustacean of the Balanidae family, which inhabits the coasts of Chile, southern Argentina and southern Peru. In its larval life, it spends time in the water column, it settles, it undergoes metamorphosis and, later in its adult life, it lives fixed to a substrate. They are omnivorous filter feeders and do not require complementary feeding.

Morphology

View of a picoroco popping through its shell.

Despite being similar to a mollusk, for having and being protected by a structure similar to a kind of shell; it is actually a crustacean of the Cirripedia class, like the barnacle.

Like all barnacles, the picoroco is morphologically very different from the rest of the crustaceans, it is a sessile organism that lives in colonies. It has a robust and firm casing made up of cylindrical wall plates. In the anterior part it has a rostral opening, through which the opercular valves appear. Inside it are the gonads and the abductor muscle. It is white with purple and brown additions.

Playback

These are simultaneous hermaphrodite organisms, with cross mating, where the specimen that acts as a female is fertilized by the male. The female retains the eggs inside her for about 3-4 weeks, to give rise to free-swimming larvae in the nauplius stage. The female incubates all developing embryos within her cavity until the first larval stage. They have 6 nauplius stages where they swim freely in plankton. After this, when around 45 days have elapsed, the cypris larva is obtained, which is characteristic of barnacles. Once this state is reached, the larva measures 1mm. and settles on a substrate.

Distribution

The picoroco inhabits the southern coast of Peru, the coast of Argentina and Chile, where it occurs along the entire Chilean coast. However, the largest landings occur in the Los Lagos Region (Chile), mainly in the towns of Calbuco, Carelmapu and Puerto Montt.

Gastronomy and commercial exploitation

Sale of picorocos in the Central Market of Santiago.

The picoroco is traditionally consumed in Chilean gastronomy. Its meat is highly appreciated and is one of the ingredients of the traditional Chilean curanto. It is one of the few species of barnacles eaten as food, the other best known being the barnacle (Pollicipes pollicipes) in Spain, France, Portugal and Morocco.

Currently there are projects for the cultivation of picoroco on the coast of Chile, since the decline in populations as a result of overexploitation has limited its commercial potential.