Even though everyone and their mothers wants to talk about the Olympics and the Obama/McCain morality interviews, I want to talk about the Chambered Nautilus. Why the Nautilus? Because it's prehistoric, it's weird looking, and I used to have one when I was a kid. Just kidding, I never had a nautilus...I WISH I had a nautilus, but I didn't.
The Nautilus has survived for millions of years nearly unchanged and as a result it is referred to as a "living fossil." Despite having the appearance of an octopus and a snail, the nautilus is not related to either of these creatures. I'm really bad at figuring out this order, suborder, genus, yadda yadda stuff and the Nautilus is particularly confusing but I think I can safely say that it is an entirely unique animal belonging to the cephalopoda class and is the only member of the nautiloidea suborder. Don't ask me what that means.
Nautiluses can have up to 90 tentacles and are arranged in a dualcircular pattern. Unlike its cephalopoda relatives, its tentacles do not have suckers, are undifferentiated, and are retractable. They also have 9 teeth!!! That's awesome. While their eyes are primitive compared to other cephalopoda (their eyes work in a way similar to a pin hole camera) they hunt their food through smell and the detection of various chemicals.
The shell of the nautilus, when cut open displays a chambered spiral that were common pieces of small natural history collections in the 1800's. From the top, their shell appears dark and patterned and blends in with the sea floor when looking down on it. The bottom is white so the nautilus will blend in with the light from above when predators are below. Get it?
There's a lot more to write about the nautilus but a lot of it I don't quite understand because it is either a very complex creature or the guy who wrote this wikipedia article is hard to read and I'm too lazy to really try because my mom is watching some celebrity gossip show and I just found out that J Lo is training for a triathalon.
