NAUTILUS

plural Nautiluses, or Nautili, either of two genera of cephalopod mollusks: the pearly, or chambered, nautilus (Nautilus), to which the name properly applies; and the paper nautilus (Argonauta), a cosmopolitan genus related to the octopus. The pearly nautilus has a smooth, coiled shell about 25 cm (10 inches) in diameter, consisting of about 36 chambers, the outermost of which it lives in. The chambers are connected by a tube that adjusts the gases in the chambers, allowing the shell to act as a float. Nautilus swims about the ocean bottom in search of shrimp or other prey. It uses up to 94 small, suckerless, contractile tentacles for capturing prey. Nautilus, the last surviving genus of the ancient order Nautiloidea, is important in paleontology for dating the strata in which it appears. The paper nautilus is usually found near the surface of tropical and subtropical seas feeding on plankton; the females differ from other members of the order Octopoda in possessing a thin, unchambered, coiled shell, formed by large flaps, or membranes, on the dorsal arms, in which the eggs are laid and the young hatch. Large shells, which attain a diameter of 30 to 40 cm, are very fragile. The male is only about 1/20 the size of the female, possesses no shell, and was once thought to be parasitic in the shell of the female. The female resembles the genus Octopus in other features.