Post by Cephalopods Daily / Redsky

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Nautiluses, the other group of surviving cephalopods, could not be more different from their coleoid cousins. They have their iconic external shells, but they also have 50+ cirri instead of 8-10 limbs and pinhole eyes. They also can live over 20 years, much longer than any other cephalopod.

Two Palau Nautiluses (Nautilus belauensi) floating in the ocean, face to face. They both have white spiral shells with brown stripes, a triangle shaped hood above its head that has a brown area with white spots, and many small appendages called cirri. Their eyes are simple pinhole type eye that a small circular opening with a vertical slit below it.

Chambered nautilus (Nautilus pompilius) (left) swimming next to a Fuzzy nautilus (Allonautilus scrobiculatus) (right). The chambered nautilus has a white spiral shell with orange stripes at the top, a triangle shaped hood above its head that has a brown area with white spots, and many small appendages called cirri. Its eye is simple pinhole type eye that a small circular opening with a vertical slit below it. The fuzzy nautilus looks very similar to the chambered nautilus, except the hood is smaller and curved downward, and its shell is mostly covered in a yellow fuzz called a periostracum.

A Bellybutton Nautilus (Nautilus macromphalus) floating just above the sandy seabed at night. They are illuminated by a diver's light.

A pair of Chambered nautiluses (Nautilus pompilius) feeding on two-spot red snapper (Lutjanus bohar) bait during daytime at 703 m (2,306 ft) depth. One is gripping the fish with its cirri while the other floats nearby.

aug 31, 2025, 8:24 pm • 70 25

Replies

🐚📷Kai Squires (inaturalist.ca/observations...), Peter Ward, Shankar Meyer (www.inaturalist.org/observations...), Dunstan AJ, Ward PD, Marshall NJ

aug 31, 2025, 8:24 pm • 5 1 • view

I’ve heard of them. They are quite weird.

aug 31, 2025, 8:34 pm • 0 0 • view