Nautilus

ID points

• Coiled hard shell with brown and white flame-like stripes
• The shell is divided into many gas chambers used to rise and sink
• Over ninety slender tentacles, none of them with suckers

Basics

Family

Nautilidae

Length

15–25 cm

Depth

100-600 m

Regions

Indo-Pacific reefs · Deep sea

Distribution

Deep reef slopes of the Indo-Pacific

Diet

Carrion and crustaceans

Easily confused with

Box JellyfishBell shaped like a cube, with four sharply defined cornersMoon JellyfishBell almost transparent, with four horseshoe-shaped gonads in the centreStriped DolphinSeveral fine dark blue stripes run from the eye to the vent

Fun fact

Known as a living fossil, its form has barely changed in 2 hundred million years. It carries as many as 90 tentacles, and it rises or sinks by adjusting the proportion of gas in the chambers of its shell.