Explore the wonders of the ocean in a gif-ferent way, as we tumble through the beauty and science of the sea. Our mission is to inspire conservation of the ocean.
Did you know nautilus populations tend to be about 75 percent male and 25 percent female? Scientists aren’t sure why!
Telling male and female nautiluses apart is tricky—the only way to know for sure is through dissection. If you’re just using your eyes, the cephalopod’s size can be a clue, as males tend to get larger than females.
Chambered nautilus: the ocean’s jet-propelled diver
To avoid predators by day, nautilus linger along deep reef slopes as deep as 2,000 feet. At night, they migrate to shallower waters and cruise the reefs, trailing their tentacles in search of food.
Its simple eyes can only sense dark and light, but the nautilus uses more than 90 tentacles—the most of any cephalopod—to touch and taste the world. A nautilus’s tentacles, unlike those of other cephalopods, have grooves and ridges that grip food and pass it to the nautilus’s mouth. A parrotlike beak rips the food apart, and a radula further shreds the food.
This cousin of the octopus has changed little in more than 150 million years. Its simple eyes can only sense dark and light, but the nautilus uses more than 90 tentacles—the most of any cephalopod—to touch and taste the world.
Do you know what a baby nautilus looks like? Do you want to see what a baby nautilus looks like?
Squee! Chambered nautilus are hatching at the Aquarium!!
As a second grader, seven-year-old Ellen Umeda charted her hopes and dreams in a journal, including this entry:
“When I grow up, I want to work at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.”
Today, Aquarist Ellen Umeda is doing just that – and breaking new ground as she raises one of the most challenging species housed at any aquarium: the chambered nautilus.The Sunnyvale native and UC San Diego graduate is taking the lead in caring for our first-ever chambered nautilus hatchlings, and trying new approaches that could someday lead to a breakthrough in raising and breeding these beautiful, shelled cephalopods. “I’m lucky to be working with an animal that’s still quite a mystery,” Ellen said. “There are so many unknowns.”
Nautilus eggs! You’re looking at em! WHOA! Did that one move?
No one, for example, has seen a nautilus egg in the wild – perhaps because they’re laid at depths beyond where recreational scuba divers can safely go. They can range below 100 meters (330 feet deep) – but do the young develop in warmer waters, closer to the surface, or in cooler, deeper waters? These are some of the unknowns Ellen has to contend with as she tries to take the rearing of chambered nautilus beyond the point her colleagues have achieved.
Wheee! After developing for over a year, a fully-formed nautilus emerges—with a little yolk left over.
As a member of the team that cares for the animals in our Tentacles special exhibition, Ellen raises many of the species we exhibit, including cuttlefishes and squids. She and her teammates have built a successful track record with species that no other aquarium had raised before.
Chambered nautilus present an entirely new set of challenges. She’s been wrestling with those challenges since the first nautilus egg hatched in late July. Several others have hatched since then. Starting in the 1980s, colleagues at Waikiki Aquarium, Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium, and Birch Aquarium in La Jolla began hatching and raising chambered nautilus they kept on exhibit. None of the hatchlings survived much more than a year. Toba Aquarium in Japan has also had success hatching nautiluses, with a few individuals surviving three years or longer – including one individual that lived four and a half years.
Time for noms!
Ellen is drawing on the experience of colleagues at other aquariums, and the resources here in Monterey, to seek a breakthrough in chambered nautilus care. She’s now caring for more than 150 nautilus eggs, and fewer than a half-dozen hatchlings. They’re housed under low-light conditions, some in cooler water and some in warmer, in behind-the-scenes holding areas. She’s experimenting with the water temperature at which she’s keeping the eggs laid on exhibit by the adult nautiluses. And she’s working with Curator of Collections Joe Welsh, who’s pioneered the use of pressurized holding tanks for deep-water species.
Yeah, I’m adorable and my adaptations are awesome.
Ellen believes raising chambered nautilus under pressure – perhaps even putting eggs in a pressurized aquarium before they hatch – could be the key to solving the problem of the young nautiluses becoming buoyant in the water column, rather than neutrally buoyant and able to maintain their position in the water. She thinks that the fluid-filled chambers that develop, section by section, in a growing chambered nautilus, may not function properly unless they form under pressure.
“Some of my colleagues thought that might be a solution, but they didn’t have the resources to pursue the idea,” she says. Here, she noted, we have a track record of success with deep-water rockfishes that may point the way forward with chambered nautilus.
Bless you!
“We need to experiment and try different things that mimic their environment in the wild, things that other people haven’t done,” Ellen says. “I hope our animals will live longer, and that a greater percentage of them will hatch and survive. The ultimate goal would be to raise them to adulthood, have them lay eggs, and then raise the next generation.” That, she admits, is probably a long ways off. Just as she’s benefited from the experiences of her predecessors, she hopes to contribute the next increment of progress.
“It’s all steps,” Ellen says. “Right now, it’s live one more month, and then one more.”
Do you know what a baby nautilus looks like? Do you want to see what a baby nautilus looks like?
Squee! Chambered nautilus are hatching at the Aquarium!!
As a second grader, seven-year-old Ellen Umeda charted her hopes and dreams in a journal, including this entry:
“When I grow up, I want to work at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.”
Today, Aquarist Ellen Umeda is doing just that – and breaking new ground as she raises one of the most challenging species housed at any aquarium: the chambered nautilus.The Sunnyvale native and UC San Diego graduate is taking the lead in caring for our first-ever chambered nautilus hatchlings, and trying new approaches that could someday lead to a breakthrough in raising and breeding these beautiful, shelled cephalopods. “I’m lucky to be working with an animal that’s still quite a mystery,” Ellen said. “There are so many unknowns.”
Nautilus eggs! You’re looking at em! WHOA! Did that one move?
No one, for example, has seen a nautilus egg in the wild – perhaps because they’re laid at depths beyond where recreational scuba divers can safely go. They can range below 100 meters (330 feet deep) – but do the young develop in warmer waters, closer to the surface, or in cooler, deeper waters? These are some of the unknowns Ellen has to contend with as she tries to take the rearing of chambered nautilus beyond the point her colleagues have achieved.
Wheee! After developing for over a year, a fully-formed nautilus emerges—with a little yolk left over.
As a member of the team that cares for the animals in our Tentacles special exhibition, Ellen raises many of the species we exhibit, including cuttlefishes and squids. She and her teammates have built a successful track record with species that no other aquarium had raised before.
Chambered nautilus present an entirely new set of challenges. She’s been wrestling with those challenges since the first nautilus egg hatched in late July. Several others have hatched since then. Starting in the 1980s, colleagues at Waikiki Aquarium, Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium, and Birch Aquarium in La Jolla began hatching and raising chambered nautilus they kept on exhibit. None of the hatchlings survived much more than a year. Toba Aquarium in Japan has also had success hatching nautiluses, with a few individuals surviving three years or longer – including one individual that lived four and a half years.
Time for noms!
Ellen is drawing on the experience of colleagues at other aquariums, and the resources here in Monterey, to seek a breakthrough in chambered nautilus care. She’s now caring for more than 150 nautilus eggs, and fewer than a half-dozen hatchlings. They’re housed under low-light conditions, some in cooler water and some in warmer, in behind-the-scenes holding areas. She’s experimenting with the water temperature at which she’s keeping the eggs laid on exhibit by the adult nautiluses. And she’s working with Curator of Collections Joe Welsh, who’s pioneered the use of pressurized holding tanks for deep-water species.
Yeah, I’m adorable and my adaptations are awesome.
Ellen believes raising chambered nautilus under pressure – perhaps even putting eggs in a pressurized aquarium before they hatch – could be the key to solving the problem of the young nautiluses becoming buoyant in the water column, rather than neutrally buoyant and able to maintain their position in the water. She thinks that the fluid-filled chambers that develop, section by section, in a growing chambered nautilus, may not function properly unless they form under pressure.
“Some of my colleagues thought that might be a solution, but they didn’t have the resources to pursue the idea,” she says. Here, she noted, we have a track record of success with deep-water rockfishes that may point the way forward with chambered nautilus.
Bless you!
“We need to experiment and try different things that mimic their environment in the wild, things that other people haven’t done,” Ellen says. “I hope our animals will live longer, and that a greater percentage of them will hatch and survive. The ultimate goal would be to raise them to adulthood, have them lay eggs, and then raise the next generation.” That, she admits, is probably a long ways off. Just as she’s benefited from the experiences of her predecessors, she hopes to contribute the next increment of progress.
“It’s all steps,” Ellen says. “Right now, it’s live one more month, and then one more.”
Ready or naut, the Year-End Sea-lebration continues with our first ever baby nautilus hatching at the Aquarium!
New nautilus? We’ve spotted a single egg in our chambered nautilus exhibit! Stuck on a rocky wall, the egg’s membrane layers form a protective covering. If viable, it’ll take eight to 14 months for tiny tentacles to emerge!
It may not be as slinky or showyas its cephalopod cousins the octopus, cuttlefish and squid, but the chambered nautilus (Nautilus pompilious) has
some very distinguished credentials of its own.
First, it’s the oldest
cephalopod. Really old. The nautilus dates back 150 million years, and has changed
little over the ages. It’s considered a living fossil.
Some of its bodily functions are
pretty primitive, too. Its simple eyes can only sense dark and light, like a
pinhole camera. Rather than rely on speed or camouflage for protection like its
cousins, the nautilus has kept its shell.
When it really needs to hunker down it can even shut itself completely inside, covering the opening with a leathery hood formed by two specially folded tentacles.
As the nautilus grows it adds chambers to its shell – each one slightly larger than the last to accommodate its bigger body. It controls its buoyancy
by moving fluids in and out of those chambers.
Like its cephalopod kin, the nautilus
has tentacles. But unlike those kin, the nautilus has more than 90 – the most in its family – with which to touch and
taste the world. They don’t have suckers, however. Instead, grooves
and ridges grip food and pass it to the nautilus’s mouth, where a parrotlike
beak rips the food apart – a function shared with other cephalopods.
Nautilus, Interrupted
Nautiluses also live longer – a
lot longer – than their cousins; they may live for more than 20 years, as compared to
about two years for most octopuses, cuttlefishes or squid.
These mysterious cephalopods
are under increasing threats from fishermen seeking to cash in on the nautilus’s
unique shell, with its attractive shape and pearlescent chambered interior – which also just happens to form nature’s finest example of a perfect
logarithmic spiral.
Currently there are no national
or international regulations to protect the nautilus, but it is said some biologists have
begun the conversation.
You can see more than 30 living nautiluses
in our Tentacles
special exhibition – the most on exhibit anywhere. You won’t find any shells in
our gift shops, for good reason.
Get those 90 tentacles in the air and wave ‘em around like you just don’t care—it’s time to shellebrate Nautilus Night!
Nautilus really rise to the occasion thanks to a series of hollow chambers in their shells. By changing the amount of gas and liquid inside the chambers, nautilus can adjust their buoyancy, allowing them to move up and down in the water column with ease.
Beautiful, mysterious–and little changed in 150-million years. Have you seen them? We have chambered nautilus in our new special exhibition, Tentacles: The Astounding Lives of Octopuses, Squid and Cuttlefishes.
Tentacles up if you can naut get enough of the nautilus! This cousin of the octopus is a living link with the past—little changed for more than 150 million years.
If you receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits — known as CalFresh in California — you can visit the Aquarium for free!
Simply present your valid SNAP EBT card at the Main Entrance (tickets only available in person) along with a matching photo ID, for free admission for the SNAP EBT cardholder and up to three additional people.
ES- Si recibes beneficios federales de asistencia alimentaria a través del Programa de Asistencia Nutricional Suplementaria (SNAP, por sus siglas en inglés/ CalFresh en California) – puedes visitar el Acuario gratis!
Simplemente presenta tu tarjeta válida SNAP EBT en la Entrada Principal del Acuario (boletos solo disponible en persona) y una identificación con fotografía que coincida para entrada gratuita por cada titular de tarjeta EBT y tres personas adicionales.
ALT