Peter Ward dives to meet a wild Nautilus

Posted by Mark Frauenfelder, July 30, 2008 10:11 AM | permalink

Avi Solomon says: "Peter Ward, paleontologist, dives at night to meet the Nautilus, a wondrous creature which has survived for 500 million years."

Peter Ward dives to meet a wild Nautilus

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#1 posted by membrain , July 30, 2008 2:12 PM

Wonderful! Thanks!

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#2 posted by Jardine

, July 30, 2008 2:25 PM

You'd think that after living for 500 million years, he'd get kind of bored.

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#3 posted by Justin Ried , July 30, 2008 3:26 PM

And the nautilus said "lol, n00b..."

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#4 posted by RJ , July 30, 2008 4:10 PM

Yes, but how do they taste?

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#5 posted by Pipenta , July 30, 2008 7:26 PM

Oh, I am so jealous. This is a lifelong dream of mine, to see a nautilus in the wild. What a wonderful experience it must have been. I'm so glad we get a little taste of it from the video.

Did you notice that one of them seemed to have two or three parasites riding on the outside of its shel? Crustaceans of some sort is what they looked like. If I had been diving with them, I would have been very tempted to play cleaning goby/shrimp and to have picked the parasite off. Of course the parasite might well have been very specific to the nautilus, and with a lineage every bit as ancient.

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#6 posted by travelina

, July 30, 2008 8:36 PM

Great video, thanks!