Get Our Extension

Chambered nautilus

From Wikipedia, in a visual modern way
Chambered nautilus
Temporal range: Pleistocene–Holocene
Nautilus side.jpg
CITES Appendix II (CITES)[1]
Scientific classification edit
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Cephalopoda
Subclass: Nautiloidea
Order: Nautilida
Family: Nautilidae
Genus: Nautilus
Species:
N. pompilius
Binomial name
Nautilus pompilius
Subspecies
Synonyms

The chambered nautilus (Nautilus pompilius), also called the pearly nautilus, is the best-known species of nautilus. The shell, when cut away, reveals a lining of lustrous nacre and displays a nearly perfect equiangular spiral, although it is not a golden spiral. The shell exhibits countershading, being light on the bottom and dark on top. This is to help avoid predators, because when seen from above, it blends in with the darkness of the sea, and when seen from below, it blends in with the light coming from above.

The range of the chambered nautilus encompasses much of the south Pacific; It has been found near reefs and on the seafloor off of the coasts of Australia, Japan, and Micronesia.[2]

The eyes of the chambered nautilus, like those of all Nautilus species, are more primitive than those of most other cephalopods; the eye has no lens and thus is comparable to a pinhole camera. The species has about 90 cirri (referred to as "tentacles", see Nautilus § Cirri) that do not have suckers, differing significantly from the limbs of coleoids. Chambered nautiluses, again like all members of the genus, have a pair of rhinophores located near each eye which detect chemicals, and use olfaction and chemotaxis to find their food.[3]

The oldest fossils of the species are known from Early Pleistocene sediments deposited off the coast of Luzon in the Philippines.[4]

The first and oldest fossil of Chambered Nautilus displayed at the Philippine National Museum.
The first and oldest fossil of Chambered Nautilus displayed at the Philippine National Museum.

Although once thought to be a living fossil, the chambered nautilus is now considered taxonomically very different from ancient ammonites, and the recent fossil record surrounding the species shows more genetic diversity among nautiluses now than has been found since the extinction of the dinosaurs.[2] Indeed, the taxon of the chambered nautilus, Nautilus pompilius is actually a grouping of tens of different species of nautilus under one name.[2]

All nautilus species are threatened due to overfishing for their shell, which primarily is used for jewelry and other ornamental artifacts.[5] In 2016, they were moved to CITES Appendix II, which restricts international trade, and later the chambered nautilus was recognized as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.[6]

Discover more about Chambered nautilus 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.

Nacre

Nacre

Nacre, also known as mother of pearl, is an organic–inorganic composite material produced by some molluscs as an inner shell layer; it is also the material of which pearls are composed. It is strong, resilient, and iridescent.

Logarithmic spiral

Logarithmic spiral

A logarithmic spiral, equiangular spiral, or growth spiral is a self-similar spiral curve that often appears in nature. The first to describe a logarithmic spiral was Albrecht Dürer (1525) who called it an "eternal line". More than a century later, the curve was discussed by Descartes (1638), and later extensively investigated by Jacob Bernoulli, who called it Spira mirabilis, "the marvelous spiral".

Golden spiral

Golden spiral

In geometry, a golden spiral is a logarithmic spiral whose growth factor is φ, the golden ratio. That is, a golden spiral gets wider by a factor of φ for every quarter turn it makes.

Countershading

Countershading

Countershading, or Thayer's law, is a method of camouflage in which an animal's coloration is darker on the top or upper side and lighter on the underside of the body. This pattern is found in many species of mammals, reptiles, birds, fish, and insects, both in predators and in prey.

Cephalopod

Cephalopod

A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head, and a set of arms or tentacles modified from the primitive molluscan foot. Fishers sometimes call cephalopods "inkfish", referring to their common ability to squirt ink. The study of cephalopods is a branch of malacology known as teuthology.

Cirrus (biology)

Cirrus (biology)

In biology, a cirrus SIRR-əs, plural cirri, SIRR-eye, is a long, thin structure in an animal similar to a tentacle but generally lacking the tentacle's strength, flexibility, thickness, and sensitivity.

Chemotaxis

Chemotaxis

Chemotaxis is the movement of an organism or entity in response to a chemical stimulus. Somatic cells, bacteria, and other single-cell or multicellular organisms direct their movements according to certain chemicals in their environment. This is important for bacteria to find food by swimming toward the highest concentration of food molecules, or to flee from poisons. In multicellular organisms, chemotaxis is critical to early development and development as well as in normal function and health. In addition, it has been recognized that mechanisms that allow chemotaxis in animals can be subverted during cancer metastasis. The aberrant chemotaxis of leukocytes and lymphocytes also contribute to inflammatory diseases such as atherosclerosis, asthma, and arthritis. Sub-cellular components, such as the polarity patch generated by mating yeast, may also display chemotactic behavior.

Early Pleistocene

Early Pleistocene

The Early Pleistocene is an unofficial sub-epoch in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, being the earliest division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. It is currently estimated to span the time between 2.580 ± 0.005 Ma and 0.773 ± 0.005 Ma. The term Early Pleistocene applies to both the Gelasian Age and the Calabrian Age.

Luzon

Luzon

Luzon is the largest and most populous island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the Philippines archipelago, it is the economic and political center of the nation, being home to the country's capital city, Manila, as well as Quezon City, the country's most populous city. With a population of 64 million as of 2021,  it contains 52.5% of the country's total population and is the fourth most populous island in the world. It is the 15th largest island in the world by land area.

Ammonoidea

Ammonoidea

Ammonoids are a group of extinct marine mollusc animals in the subclass Ammonoidea of the class Cephalopoda. These molluscs, commonly referred to as ammonites, are more closely related to living coleoids than they are to shelled nautiloids such as the living Nautilus species. The earliest ammonites appeared during the Devonian, with the last species vanishing during the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.

Overfishing

Overfishing

Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally, resulting in the species becoming increasingly underpopulated in that area. Overfishing can occur in water bodies of any sizes, such as ponds, wetlands, rivers, lakes or oceans, and can result in resource depletion, reduced biological growth rates and low biomass levels. Sustained overfishing can lead to critical depensation, where the fish population is no longer able to sustain itself. Some forms of overfishing, such as the overfishing of sharks, has led to the upset of entire marine ecosystems. Types of overfishing include: growth overfishing, recruitment overfishing, ecosystem overfishing.

Life cycle

Because of their oceanic habitat, studies of their life cycle have primarily been based on captive animals and their eggs have never been seen in the wild.[7] Although nautilus have been kept at public aquariums since the 1950s, the chambered nautilus was first bred in captivity at the Waikiki Aquarium in 1995 (a couple of other nautilus species had been bred earlier) and captive breeding remains a rare event even today.[8] Unlike most cephalopods, the nautilus lacks a larval stage. The eggs are laid in crevices or between corals by the female. The nautilus shell of the young develop inside their eggs and breach the top of the egg before the nautilus fully emerges. Depending on water temperature, the eggs hatch after between 9 and 15 months.[7] In 2017, it was bred at Monterey Bay Aquarium, which managed — possibly for the first time ever — to film the young emerging from the egg.[9] Like other nautilus but unlike most other cephalopods, chambered nautilus are relatively long-lived and only reach maturity when about 5 years old.[7]

Diet

As a carnivore, it feeds on both underwater carrion and detritus, as well as living shellfish and crab.[10] Mainly scavengers, chambered nautiluses have been described as eating "anything that smells".[10] This food is stored in a stomach-like organ known as a crop, which can store food for a great deal of time without it denaturing.

Subspecies

Two subspecies of N. pompilius have been described: N. p. pompilius and N. p. suluensis

N. p. pompilius is by far the most common and widespread of all nautiluses. It is sometimes called the emperor nautilus due to its large size. The distribution of N. p. pompilius covers the Andaman Sea east to Fiji and southern Japan south to the Great Barrier Reef. Exceptionally large specimens with shell diameters up to 254 mm (10.0 in)[11] have been recorded from Indonesia and northern Australia. This giant form was described as Nautilus repertus, but most scientists do not consider it a separate species.

N. p. suluensis is a much smaller animal, restricted to the Sulu Sea in the southwestern Philippines, after which it is named. The largest known specimen measured 160 mm in shell diameter.[12]

Discover more about Subspecies related topics

Subspecies

Subspecies

In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species have subspecies, but for those that do there must be at least two. Subspecies is abbreviated subsp. or ssp. and the singular and plural forms are the same.

Cephalopod size

Cephalopod size

Cephalopods, which include squids and octopuses, vary enormously in size. The smallest are only about 1 centimetre (0.39 in) long and weigh less than 1 gram (0.035 oz) at maturity, while the largest—the giant and colossal squids—can exceed 10 metres (33 ft) in length and weigh close to half a tonne (1,100 lb), making them the largest living invertebrates. Living species range in mass more than three-billion-fold, or across nine orders of magnitude, from the lightest hatchlings to the heaviest adults. Certain cephalopod species are also noted for having individual body parts of exceptional size. The giant and colossal squids, for example, have the largest known eyes among living animals.

Andaman Sea

Andaman Sea

The Andaman Sea is a marginal sea of the northeastern Indian Ocean bounded by the coastlines of Myanmar and Thailand along the Gulf of Martaban and west side of the Malay Peninsula, and separated from the Bay of Bengal to its west by the Andaman Islands and the Nicobar Islands. Its southern end is at Breueh Island just north of Sumatra, with the Strait of Malacca further southeast.

Fiji

Fiji

Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about 1,100 nautical miles north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about 110 are permanently inhabited—and more than 500 islets, amounting to a total land area of about 18,300 square kilometres (7,100 sq mi). The most outlying island group is Ono-i-Lau. About 87% of the total population of 924,610 live on the two major islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. About three-quarters of Fijians live on Viti Levu's coasts: either in the capital city of Suva; or in smaller urban centres such as Nadi—where tourism is the major local industry; or in Lautoka, where the sugar-cane industry is dominant. The interior of Viti Levu is sparsely inhabited because of its terrain.

Japan

Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north toward the East China Sea, Philippine Sea, and Taiwan in the south. Japan is a part of the Ring of Fire, and spans an archipelago of 14,125 islands, with the five main islands being Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa. Tokyo is the nation's capital and largest city, followed by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, and Kyoto.

Great Barrier Reef

Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over 2,300 kilometres (1,400 mi) over an area of approximately 344,400 square kilometres (133,000 sq mi). The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, Australia, separated from the coast by a channel 100 miles wide in places and over 200 feet deep. The Great Barrier Reef can be seen from outer space and is the world's biggest single structure made by living organisms. This reef structure is composed of and built by billions of tiny organisms, known as coral polyps. It supports a wide diversity of life and was selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981. CNN labelled it one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World in 1997. Australian World Heritage places included it in its list in 2007. The Queensland National Trust named it a state icon of Queensland in 2006.

Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guinea. Indonesia is the world's largest archipelagic state and the 14th-largest country by area, at 1,904,569 square kilometres. With over 275 million people, Indonesia is the world's fourth-most populous country and the most populous Muslim-majority country. Java, the world's most populous island, is home to more than half of the country's population.

Australia

Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east, and mountain ranges in the south-east.

Sulu Sea

Sulu Sea

The Sulu Sea is a body of water in the southwestern area of the Philippines, separated from the South China Sea in the northwest by Palawan and from the Celebes Sea in the southeast by the Sulu Archipelago. Borneo is found to the southwest and Visayas to the northeast.

Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It is situated in the western Pacific Ocean and consists of around 7,641 islands that are broadly categorized under three main geographical divisions from north to south: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The Philippines is bounded by the South China Sea to the west, the Philippine Sea to the east, and the Celebes Sea to the southwest. It shares maritime borders with Taiwan to the north, Japan to the northeast, Palau to the east and southeast, Indonesia to the south, Malaysia to the southwest, Vietnam to the west, and China to the northwest. The Philippines is the world's thirteenth-most-populous country and has diverse ethnicities and cultures throughout its islands. Manila is the country's capital, while the largest city is Quezon City; both lie within the urban area of Metro Manila.

Shell geometry

1896 skiagraph (X-ray photograph) of a N. pompilius by James Green & James H. Gardiner, from Proceedings of the Malacological Society of London, Vol. II, Pl. XV, p. 178
1896 skiagraph (X-ray photograph) of a N. pompilius by James Green & James H. Gardiner, from Proceedings of the Malacological Society of London, Vol. II, Pl. XV, p. 178

The chambered nautilus is often used as an example of the golden spiral. While nautiluses show logarithmic spirals, their ratios range from about 1.24 to 1.43, with an average ratio of about 1.33 to 1. The golden spiral's ratio is 1.618. This is actually visible when the cut nautilus is inspected.

Shell function

The shell of the chambered nautilus fulfills the function of buoyancy, which allows the nautilus to dive or ascend at will, by controlling the density and volume of the liquid within its shell chambers.[13] This was found during research done in New Caledonia on nautiluses whose shell chamber fluid densities were tested at various depths, weeks apart.[13] Generally speaking, chambered nautiluses inhabit a depth around 1000 feet, although further tests demonstrated that they can, and do, dive deeper.[13] However, there are hazards associated with extreme depth for the nautilus: the shells of chambered nautiluses slowly fill with water at such depths, and they are only capable of withstanding depths up to 2000 feet before imploding due to pressure.[13]

The chambered nautilus inhabits different segments of the shell as it grows, continuously growing new, larger "cells" into which it moves its internal organs as it grows in maturity.[13] All of the smaller chambers, once uninhabited, are used in the method described above to regulate depth.[13]

In literature and art

Nautilus shells were popular items in the Renaissance cabinet of curiosities and were often mounted by goldsmiths on a thin stem to make extravagant nautilus shell cups, such as the Burghley Nef, mainly intended as decorations rather than for use. Small natural history collections were common in mid-19th-century Victorian homes, and chambered nautilus shells were popular decorations.

The chambered nautilus is the title and subject of a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes, in which he admires the "ship of pearl" and the "silent toil/That spread his lustrous coil/Still, as the spiral grew/He left the past year's dwelling for the new." He finds in the mysterious life and death of the nautilus strong inspiration for his own life and spiritual growth. He concludes:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

A painting by Andrew Wyeth, entitled Chambered Nautilus, shows a woman in a canopied bed; the composition and proportions of the bed and the window behind it mirror those of a chambered nautilus lying on a nearby table.

The popular Russian rock band Nautilus Pompilius (Russian: Наутилус Помпилиус) is named after the species.

American composer and commentator Deems Taylor wrote a cantata entitled The Chambered Nautilus in 1916.

Discover more about In literature and art related topics

Cabinet of curiosities

Cabinet of curiosities

Cabinets of curiosities, also known as cabinets of wonder and wonder-rooms, were collections of notable objects. Although more rudimentary collections had preceded them, the classic cabinets of curiosities emerged in the sixteenth century. The term cabinet originally described a room rather than a piece of furniture. Modern terminology would categorize the objects included as belonging to natural history, geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious or historical relics, works of art, and antiquities. In addition to the most famous and best documented cabinets of rulers and aristocrats, members of the merchant class and early practitioners of science in Europe formed collections that were precursors to museums.

Goldsmith

Goldsmith

A goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Nowadays they mainly specialize in jewelry-making but historically, goldsmiths have also made silverware, platters, goblets, decorative and serviceable utensils, and ceremonial or religious items.

Burghley Nef

Burghley Nef

The Burghley Nef is a parcel-gilt salt cellar made in Paris in 1527–28. It is in the form of a late medieval ship, the hull made from a nautilus shell. The ship sits on the back of a mermaid on an hexagonal base. The height is 34.8 centimetres (13.7 in).

Andrew Wyeth

Andrew Wyeth

Andrew Newell Wyeth was an American visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century.

Russia

Russia

Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world encompassing one-eighth of Earth's inhabitable landmass. Russia extends across eleven time zones and shares land boundaries with fourteen countries. It is the world's ninth-most populous country and Europe's most populous country, with a population of over 147 million people. The country's capital and largest city is Moscow. Saint Petersburg is Russia's cultural centre and second-largest city. Other major urban areas include Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, and Kazan.

Nautilus Pompilius (band)

Nautilus Pompilius (band)

Nautilus Pompilius, sometimes nicknamed Nau, was an influential Soviet, and later Russian, rock band founded in Sverdlovsk in 1982 by Vyacheslav Butusov and Dmitry Umetsky. Butusov disbanded the group in 1997, after multiple successful albums and several different line-ups of the band.

Russian language

Russian language

Russian is an East Slavic language mainly spoken in Russia. It is the native language of the Russians and belongs to the Indo-European language family. It is one of four living East Slavic languages, and is also a part of the larger Balto-Slavic languages. Besides Russia itself, Russian is an official language in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, and is used widely as a lingua franca throughout Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and to some extent in the Baltic states. It was the de facto language of the former Soviet Union.

United States

United States

The United States of America, commonly known as the United States or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City.

Deems Taylor

Deems Taylor

Joseph Deems Taylor was an American music critic, composer, and promoter of classical music. Nat Benchley, co-editor of The Lost Algonquin Roundtable, referred to him as "the dean of American music."

Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson

Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson

Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronte was a British flag officer in the Royal Navy. His inspirational leadership, grasp of strategy, and unconventional tactics brought about a number of decisive British naval victories during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest naval commanders in history.

Monmouth Museum

Monmouth Museum

The Monmouth Museum, alternatively known as The Nelson Museum and Local History Centre, is a museum in Monmouth, Monmouthshire, south east Wales. It features a collection of artifacts associated with Admiral Horatio Nelson. The museum is located in the old Market Hall in the town centre.

Source: "Chambered nautilus", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2022, October 20th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chambered_nautilus.

Enjoying Wikiz?

Enjoying Wikiz?

Get our FREE extension now!

References

Citations

  1. ^ "Appendices | CITES". cites.org. Retrieved 2022-01-14.
  2. ^ a b c Ward, Peter. "Nautilus: Chambers of secrets". New Scientist. Retrieved 2016-12-13.
  3. ^ Basil, Jennifer A.; et al. "Three-dimensional odor tracking by Nautilus pompilius" (PDF). Journal of Experimental Biology. 203 (9).
  4. ^ Ryoji, W.; et al. (2008). "First discovery of fossil Nautilus pompilius (Nautilidae, Cephalopoda) from Pangasinan, northwestern Philippines". Paleontological Research. 12 (1): 89–95. doi:10.2517/1342-8144(2008)12[89:FDOFNP]2.0.CO;2.
  5. ^ Broad, William (24 October 2011). "Loving the Chambered Nautilus to Death". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 27 October 2011. Retrieved 24 October 2011.
  6. ^ "Chambered Nautilus – Conservation & Management". NOAA Fisheries. Retrieved 5 October 2019.
  7. ^ a b c "The Chronicles of Nautilus". Monterey Bay Aquarium. Spring 2018. Retrieved 5 October 2019.
  8. ^ Norman, M. (2000). Cephalopods – A World Guide. ConchBooks. pp. 24–29.
  9. ^ "Mysterious nautilus hatch at Monterey Bay Aquarium". KSBW Action News 8, official YouTube channel. 13 December 2017. Archived from the original on 2021-12-22. Retrieved 5 October 2019.
  10. ^ a b Ward, Peter (1988). In Search Of Nautilus. New York: Simon and Schuster. pp. 72. ISBN 0-671-61951-9.
  11. ^ Pisor, D.L. (2008). Registry of World Record Size Shells. Fifth edition. ConchBooks, Hackenheim. 207 pp. ISBN 0615194753.
  12. ^ Nautilus pompilius suluensis ID:626793. Shell Encyclopedia, Conchology, Inc.
  13. ^ a b c d e f Ward, Peter (1988). In Search of Nautilus. New York: Simon and Schuster. pp. 160. ISBN 0-671-61951-9.

General references

  • Norman, M. (2000). Cephalopods: A World Guide. Hackenheim: ConchBooks. pp. 30–31.
  • Pisor, D. L. (2005). Registry of World Record Size Shells (4th ed.). Snail's Pace Productions and ConchBooks. p. 93.
  • Ward, Peter (1988). In Search of Nautilus: Three Centuries of Scientific Adventures in the Deep Pacific to Capture a Prehistoric, Living Fossil. New York: Simon and Schuster.
  • Ward, Peter (April 2, 2008). "Chamber of Secrets". New Scientist.
External links

The content of this page is based on the Wikipedia article written by contributors..
The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence & the media files are available under their respective licenses; additional terms may apply.
By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use & Privacy Policy.
Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization & is not affiliated to WikiZ.com.