Part of the nautilus, a foreign family of the cuttlefish and squid, are often named as “living fossils” for their one-of-a-kind pastas that will nonetheless seems like the 500 huge number of years of age fossils.
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“Before this, two humans had seen Allonautilus scrobiculatus“, Ward said. They have inhabited the planet for 500 million years and survived two of largest mass extinctions, yet little is known about them.
Researchers were amazed with the appearance of the nautilus when they saw it. Its most special feature is the thick and slimy hair that covers its shell. The reason for the nautiluses’ near-extinction is shell-mining.
They got tissue, shell and mucous samples before releasing them. Worldwide protection could very well help ensure the Allonautilus doesn’t fade into obscurity once again.
Indeed that was back in 1984, off of Ndrova Island in Papua New Guinea. “The first time we picked them up, we nearly dropped it. It’s the most slippery thing”, he said.
Ward says this recent sighting of Allonautilus indicates that there is still much to learn about these creatures. Next month, the US Fish and Wildlife Service will determine whether nautiluses becoming internationally protected creatures.
It wasn’t hard to recognize it. It has jaws, gills and a shell which is unmistakable from every single other specie of nautilus.
Returning to the same reef to study nautilus populations this past August, Ward again caught sight of the rare nautilus.
The scientists remarked that both the rarity of the Allonautilus scrobiculatus and the fact that it is so ecologically and genetically different from its cousins prove how a simple factor as location can affect related species.
“It’s only near this tiny island”, he said.
Ward’s main partners in this field season included Richard Hamilton and Manuai Matawai from the Nature Conservancy and Greg Barord from the City University of New York.
So far, sightings of Allonautilus have occurred exclusively off the coast of Papua New Guinea.
“This could be the rarest animal in the world” Ward told reporters. “We need to know if Allonautilus is anywhere else”.
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The National Geographic, the National Science Foundation’s Division of Polar Programs, and the Tiffany & Co.
