A deep-sea research vessel has caught a creature on camera that has been on Earth since the dinosaurs.
Experts at the Ocean Exploration Trust (OET) saw not just one but four palau nautilus individuals during an expedition around the western Pacific Ocean island of Palau.
Only found in the waters around Palau, the palau nautilus is part of the nautilidae family and viewed as a “living fossil” as they have remained largely unchanged for millions of years.
The sighting in the German Channel near Palau is the first made by the research vessel E/V Nautilus in 15 years of operations around the world and more than 1,000 dives.
Jacob Ottaviani, a video engineer documenting the expedition, said: “Being in the control van for our first sighting of this animal was pretty incredible.”
“Everyone was so excited – you could feel the collective energy and childlike joy – finally seeing something everyone had been hoping to see.”
Palau nautilus is a type of cephalopod, along with squid and octopus. They have distinct shells of a series of gas-filled chambers that help them keep buoyant.
They frequent depths of 20-100 metres and prefer to be around rocks or coral where they can hide from predators. Their name, “nautilus”, comes from the Greek word for sailor.
In a video shared by OET, one of the palau nautilus individuals can be seen using its jet propulsion to move over the seabed.
Discover Wildlife quotes Samantha Wishnak, Expedition Leader and Operations Coordinator at OET as saying: “In addition to the obvious milestone of seeing a nautilus while onboard the eponymous Nautilus, it was also surreal to encounter an animal whose body plan and behaviours have barely changed since the age of the dinosaurs.”
Dinosaurs roamed the Earth from the Triassic period, about 245 million years ago, until they went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous Period, some 65 million years ago.
Not much is known about the palau nautilus, which is listed as near-threatened by the IUCN Red List of threatened species.
It migrates into shallower waters after dark and swims back down to the deep before sunlight. It feeds on small organisms, including crustaceans and molluscs, using its tentacles to snatch its prey and draw it towards its mouths, which are shaped like beaks.
The nautiluses were spotted in the German Channel on the last dive of the expedition, during which six-gill sharks were also observed. Rusted metal, munitions, glass bottles, and a large anchor the team believes to be a remnant of the Second World War were also observed.
