Ocean researchers have shared the extraordinary moment a nautilus swam right up to their underwater vehicle to say hello.
Marine scientists were exploring Rotuma – an island around 300 miles north of Fiji – on a deep-sea submersible when something stood out to them on the seafloor around 365 metres deep. It was the iconic striped shell of a nautilus – a prehistoric mollusc that has been on the planet since before the time of the dinosaurs.
“As we approached, it seemed like the shelled creature was just as curious about us as we were about it, because it lifted up from the seafloor and started swimming its way over to us,” says Whitney Goodell, a marine ecologist at National Geographic Pristine Seas.
“It came right up to the glass dome and hovered around at our eye-level, as we excitedly pointed at it from inside our dry ‘fishbowl’ of a vehicle.”
The bizarre creature was out of shot of the submersible’s cameras so the team grabbed their phones to try to capture the incredible sighting on film.
A sighting like this is not common. “We occasionally see them on baited camera video,” she says, “but encountering one by pure chance in their natural habitat is an absolute treat.”
Nautiluses live in the ocean’s twilight zone, several hundred metres below the surface. “They spend most of their time in a ‘Goldilocks’ depth zone,” Goodell explains. “Too shallow and the water is dangerously warm, but too deep and extreme pressure will implode the gas-filled shell chambers they rely on for buoyancy.”
Because nautiluses rely so heavily on subsea features like the underwater bank the team was exploring, deep-sea conservation is important, she adds: “Protecting these features safeguards the movement and survival of nautiluses and countless other deep-sea species.”
More amazing wildlife videos from around the world
- Polar bear pulls seal pup onto ice then backs away. The reason why is extraordinary
- Mysterious ‘ghost’ animal filmed 4,443m deep in Pacific abyss
- 16ft great white shark found with perfectly circular hole in head – and we know exactly what caused it
- Staggering footage shows 'vampire' creature drifting through deep ocean
