During filming, the researchers also captured several nautiluses including Allonautilus from depths of 600 feet (183 meters).
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Together with his colleagues, he suspended fish and chicken meat on a pole and sunk the alluring snacks about 500 to 1,300 feet (150 to 400 meters) below surface, hoping to attract nautiluses in the area.
It wasn’t hard to distinguish it. It has jaws, gills and a shell which is distinct from all other species of nautilus. They then took samples and returned the creatures to the site where they had been obtained. “My colleague Bruce Saunders from Bryn Mawr College found Allonautilus scrobiculatus and I saw them a few weeks later”.
For the time being, Ward wants to see the nautiluses again in future before they all become non-existent.
The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view the Allonautilus emerged when Ward and a group of researchers erected a bait in the sea floor and install camera to see the activities f marine creatures all-day long. The creature, a type of shellfish related to squid, octopus and cuttlefish, holds this distinction because it’s been around on planet Earth for about 500 million years.
Allonautilus scrobiculatus off the coast of Ndrova Island in Papua New Guinea.
Ward rediscovered the nautilus in July 2015, after returning to Papua New Guinea to survey nautilus populations.
A chambered nautilus (Nautilus pompilius) swimming above a rare crusty nautilus (Allonautilus scrobiculatus) off the coast of Ndrova Island, Papua New Guinea.
Most nautiluses live very deep in the water, and not in cold waters because they can’t survive it; and this makes them to live nearer to corals than anywhere else. They then transported the animals back to their capture site and released them. Biologist Peter Ward from the University of Washington was more than pleased to meet an old friend, so to speak.
“For the next two hours, the sunfish just kept whacking them with its tail”,
Ward was quoted as saying in an article Tuesday from the University of Washington, where he’s a professor of biology.
Ward and his colleagues used this information to determine the age and sex of each animal, as well as the diversity of each nautilus population in the South Pacific. These creatures tend to stay deep under the water because they don’t like warm water. This means that these creatures existed from the dawn of dinosaurs to the extinction of dinosaurs but overfishing can become a serious threat to these ancient living sea creatures. The findings also pose a challenge for conservationists.
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Ward is alluding of course to illegal fishing and so-called nautilus mining. He feels the need to go out and look for them if they are available in any other parts of the world.
