Details
Nautilus pompilius
The chambered nautilus is a shelled cephalopod of Indian and Pacific waters. It is a solitary carnivore using reef slopes and nearby ocean habitats.
Map: Ecoregions 2017 © RESOLVE (CC BY 4.0) · Natural Earth (PD)
It lives around outer reefs and deep ocean slopes. It may shift depth between day and night while using the boundary between reef and open water.
Shell diameter is about 15-25 cm, and weight about 0.2-1.3 kg. The spiral shell is divided into chambers used in buoyancy control.
It is solitary and treated here as diurnal. It explores with many tentacles and moves by gentle jet propulsion.
It is carnivorous, eating small animals and carrion. Tentacles grasp food, which is then cut with a beak.
Females lay relatively large eggs on hard seafloor surfaces. Young hatch with a small shell and begin independent life.
Its conservation status is LC. As a cephalopod with ancient-looking features, it is important for understanding mollusk evolution.
