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Allonautilus scrobiculatus

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Allonautilus scrobiculatus
Allonautilus scrobiculatus.jpg
Allonautilus scrobiculatus off the coast of Papua New Guinea
CITES Appendix II (CITES)[1]
Scientific classification edit
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Cephalopoda
Subclass: Nautiloidea
Order: Nautilida
Family: Nautilidae
Genus: Allonautilus
Species:
A. scrobiculatus
Binomial name
Allonautilus scrobiculatus
(Lightfoot, 1786)
Synonyms

Allonautilus scrobiculatus, also known as the crusty nautilus or fuzzy nautilus, is a species of nautilus native to the waters around New Guinea, specifically New Britain and Milne Bay, and the Solomon Islands. A. scrobiculatus is recognizable by the large open umbilicus, which is around 20% of the shell diameter at its widest point. This species, along with the closely related A. perforatus, were originally placed in the genus Nautilus, but have recently been given their own genus on account of significant morphological differences.[2] The most obvious are features of the shell, including crease and an encrusting layer (periostracum) that covers most of the shell. Gills and reproductive structures also differ significantly from members of the genus Nautilus. The shell is usually up to around 18 cm in diameter, although the largest specimen ever recorded measured 21.5 cm.[3] The species was thought to have gone extinct after 1986, but was rediscovered in July 2015.[4]

Discover more about Allonautilus scrobiculatus related topics

Nautilus

Nautilus

The nautilus is a pelagic marine mollusc of the cephalopod family Nautilidae. The nautilus is the sole extant family of the superfamily Nautilaceae and of its smaller but near equal suborder, Nautilina.

New Guinea

New Guinea

New Guinea is the world's second-largest island, with an area of 785,753 km2 (303,381 sq mi). Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the 150-kilometre wide Torres Strait, though both landmasses lie on the same continental shelf. Numerous smaller islands are located to the west and east.

New Britain

New Britain

New Britain is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago, part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from New Guinea by a northwest corner of the Solomon Sea and from New Ireland by St. George's Channel. The main towns of New Britain are Rabaul/Kokopo and Kimbe. The island is roughly the size of Taiwan. While the island was part of German New Guinea, it was named Neupommern . In common with most of the Bismarcks it was largely formed by volcanic processes, and has active volcanoes including Ulawun, Langila, the Garbuna Group, the Sulu Range, and the volcanoes Tavurvur and Vulcan of the Rabaul caldera. A major eruption of Tavurvur in 1994 destroyed the East New Britain provincial capital of Rabaul. Most of the town still lies under metres of ash, and the capital has been moved to nearby Kokopo.

Milne Bay

Milne Bay

Milne Bay is a large bay in Milne Bay Province, south-eastern Papua New Guinea. More than 35 kilometres long and over 15 kilometres wide, Milne Bay is a sheltered deep-water harbor accessible via Ward Hunt Strait. It is surrounded by the heavily wooded Stirling Range to the north and south, and on the northern shore, a narrow coastal strip, soggy with sago and mangrove swamps. The bay is named after Sir Alexander Milne.

Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and northwest of Vanuatu. It has a land area of 28,400 square kilometres (11,000 sq mi), and a population of approximately 700,000. Its capital, Honiara, is located on the largest island, Guadalcanal. The country takes its name from the wider area of the Solomon Islands (archipelago), which is a collection of Melanesian islands that also includes the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, but excludes the Santa Cruz Islands.

Umbilicus (mollusc)

Umbilicus (mollusc)

The umbilicus of a shell is the axially aligned, hollow cone-shaped space within the whorls of a coiled mollusc shell. The term umbilicus is often used in descriptions of gastropod shells, i.e. it is a feature present on the ventral side of many snail shells, including some species of sea snails, land snails, and freshwater snails.

Allonautilus perforatus

Allonautilus perforatus

Allonautilus perforatus also known as the Bali chambered nautilus, is a species of nautilus native to the waters around Bali, Indonesia. It is known only from drifted shells and, as such, is the least studied of the six recognized nautilus species. Thus, not much is known about it outside of the shell.

Genus

Genus

Genus is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus.E.g. Panthera leo (lion) and Panthera onca (jaguar) are two species within the genus Panthera. Panthera is a genus within the family Felidae.

Nautilus (genus)

Nautilus (genus)

Nautilus is a genus of cephalopods in the family Nautilidae. Species in this genus differ significantly in terms of morphology from those placed in the sister taxon Allonautilus. The oldest fossils of the genus are known from the Late Eocene Hoko River Formation, in Washington State and from Late-Eocene to Early Oligocene sediments in Kazakhstan. The oldest fossils of the modern species Nautilus pompilius are from Early Pleistocene sediments off the coast of Luzon in the Philippines.

Periostracum

Periostracum

The periostracum is a thin, organic coating that is the outermost layer of the shell of many shelled animals, including molluscs and brachiopods. Among molluscs, it is primarily seen in snails and clams, i.e. in gastropods and bivalves, but it is also found in cephalopods such as Allonautilus scrobiculatus. The periostracum is an integral part of the shell, and it forms as the shell forms, along with the other shell layers. The periostracum is used to protect the organism from corrosion.

Gill

Gill

A gill is a respiratory organ that many aquatic organisms use to extract dissolved oxygen from water and to excrete carbon dioxide. The gills of some species, such as hermit crabs, have adapted to allow respiration on land provided they are kept moist. The microscopic structure of a gill presents a large surface area to the external environment. Branchia is the zoologists' name for gills.

Taxonomy

The genus Allonautilus, which contains a mere 2 species, is a sister genus of the Nautilus which contains 11 species, 5 of which are widely accepted as being distinct. The Allonautilus is very understudied and not much is known about it. However, the more commonly known sister genus, the Nautilus, has been known to natural historians since the renaissance. Nautiluses show very little speciation within the genus and are a distant cousin to the squid and octopus.

Description

A. scrobiculatus’ close lineage with nautiluses is juxtaposed by their very distinct morphological features which differ greatly from that of the nautilus. A very distinct feature that one will immediately notice is the organism’s thick, hairy, slime-covered shell. A. scrobiculatus is covered with white, irregularly shaped, multipronged papillae which extend from the surface of its hood.

The first illustration of the internal anatomy of Allonautilus scrobiculatus from a 1912 monograph by Arthur Willey.
The first illustration of the internal anatomy of Allonautilus scrobiculatus from a 1912 monograph by Arthur Willey.

In addition, it possesses a scrobiculate shell shape, meaning the shells have numerous grooves made into them unlike the Allonautilus perforatus, the only other organism in its genus; other than this, these two organisms share a very similar shell shape and coloration. A. scrobiculatus’ gills are similar in structure to those of the nautilus, however, differ in size proving smaller, with less folioles, in similarly sized nautilus specimens.

Periostracum

An unusual feature of Allonautilus scrobiculatus is its periostracum or "shell skin". The "shaggy" periostracumon is present on freshly caught samples, and is thickly interlayered, resembling slimy hair.[2]

Allonautilus scrobiculatus, or otherwise known as the crusty nautilus or fuzzy nautilus is a species of cephalopod.A. scrobiculatus’ most recently sighting was in July 2015 by biologist Peter Ward of the University of Washington. Ward’s colleague, Bruce Saunders, a geologist from Bryn Mawr College was the one who had initially sighted the organism all the way back in 1984.

Distribution and habitat

A. scrobiculatus is primarily found in waters surrounding Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. It tends to live in a very narrow range at further depths (roughly 500–1,300 ft), eluding many researchers and scientists. This is a result of the species’ intolerance to heat making it unable to live in too shallow of waters and the species’ “fail depth”, meaning it will die if venturing into too deep of waters.

Source: "Allonautilus scrobiculatus", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2022, February 21st), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allonautilus_scrobiculatus.

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References
  1. ^ "Appendices | CITES". cites.org. Retrieved 2022-01-14.
  2. ^ a b Ward, P.D. & W.B. Saunders 1997. Allonautilus: a new genus of living nautiloid cephalopod and its bearing on phylogeny of the Nautilida. Journal of Paleontology 71(6): 1054–1064.
  3. ^ Pisor, D. L. (2005). Registry of World Record Size Shells (4th ed.). Snail's Pace Productions and ConchBooks. p. 93.
  4. ^ Urton, James (25 August 2015). "Rare nautilus sighted for the first time in three decades". UW Today. University of Washington. Archived from the original on 26 August 2015. Retrieved 1 September 2015.
  • Norman, M. (2000). Cephalopods: A world guide. Hackenheim, DE: ConchBooks. p. 31.
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