Nautiluses are amazing creatures. They’ve survived five mass extinctions and can learn and remember, as demonstrated in maze experiments. They’re also cephalopods, but they do a lot of things differently from octopuses, squids, and cuttlefish.
In this video from the American Museum of Natural History, curator and paleontologist Neil Landman lists seven ways that these shelled cephalopods are unique among their evolutionary neighbors. Plus, we get a good look at their tentacle-like cirri and inside their shells.
Related reading and watching: SaveTheNautilus.com and Science Friday’s Teaching Ancient Nautilus New Tricks.
Plus: Cephalopod aquarists film tiny chambered nautilus hatchlings.
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