Nautilus pompilius
Linnaeus, 1758 · speciesAt a glance
Sources13 archives
Databases and archives Nautilus pompilius's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation12 languages↗
Animal Diversity WebUniv. of Michigan MZspecies account↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility11 538 records↗
OBISOcean Biodiversity Information System11 150 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI322 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics316 specimens↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
GoaTGenomes on a Tree · Sangergenome & karyotype↗
NCBIUS National Library of Medicinegenome & karyotype↗
Paleobiology DatabasePBDB consortiumfossil record↗
Catalogue of LifeCOLtaxonomy↗
GLoBIGlobal Biotic Interactionsbiotic interactions↗Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
The chambered nautilus (Nautilus pompilius), also called the pearly nautilus, is the best-known species of nautilus. The shell, when cut away, reveals a lining of lustrous nacre and displays a nearly perfect equiangular spiral, although it is not a golden spiral. The shell exhibits countershading, being light on the bottom and dark on top. This is to help avoid predators, because when seen from above, it blends in with the darkness of the sea, and when seen from below, it blends in with the light coming from above. The range of the chambered nautilus encompasses much of the south Pacific; It has been found near reefs and on the seafloor off of the coasts of Australia, Japan, and Micronesia. The eyes of the chambered nautilus, like those of all Nautilus species, are more primitive than those of most other cephalopods; the eye has no lens and thus is comparable to a pinhole camera. The species has about 90 cirri (referred to as "tentacles", see ) that do not have suckers, differing significantly from the limbs of coleoids. Chambered nautiluses, again like all members of the genus, have a pair of rhinophores located near each eye which detect chemicals, and use olfaction and chemotaxis to find their food. The oldest fossils of the species are known from Early Pleistocene sediments deposited off the coast of Luzon in the Philippines. The first and oldest fossil of Chambered Nautilus displayed at the Philippine National Museum. Although once thought to be a living fossil, the chambered nautilus is now considered taxonomically very different from ancient ammonites, and the recent fossil record surrounding the species shows more genetic diversity among nautiluses now than has been found since the extinction of the dinosaurs. Indeed, the taxon of the chambered nautilus, Nautilus pompilius is actually a grouping of tens of different species of nautilus under one name. All nautilus species are threatened due to overfishing for their shell, which primarily is used for jewelry and other ornamental artifacts. In 2016, they were moved to CITES Appendix II, which restricts international trade, and later the chambered nautilus was recognized as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology2
Habitat & environment2
Uses & economy1
Other traits3
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Nautilus pompilius has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
Besides the big genome in the nucleus, cells carry a small, circular loop of DNA inside the cell's energy factories — the mitochondria. It is inherited almost only from the mother and is a leftover from ancient bacteria that moved into the cell. The mitochondrial markers above (ND*, COX, CYTB…) are read from exactly this loop. Outer ring = one strand, inner ring = the other.
The complete instruction manual Nautilus pompilius carries — its genome. We read it from three angles — how big it is, how the DNA is packed into chromosomes, and how completely it has been sequenced — and explain how to read each value as you go.
Genome sizehow big the whole instruction manual is
Measured in base pairs (bp) — the individual letters of DNA (human ≈ 3.2 Gb, a bacterium a few million). The chart places this genome on a logarithmic scale — each step to the right is ten times bigger — among reference organisms. Across species a bigger genome loosely tracks with larger cells, slower growth and lower-energy lifestyles (powered flight favours small genomes) — yet it does not imply more genes or a more advanced organism (the long-standing C-value paradox).
Sequencing statusassembly quality — how far to trust these numbers
Assembly level tells you how finished the sequence is — from fragmented contigs, through scaffolds, up to a full chromosome-level assembly. BUSCO % estimates completeness: the share of genes expected to be present that were actually found. These describe the data quality, not the organism.
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard periods (Jurassic, Cretaceous…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. The dashed rules marked ✦ are the five great mass extinctions. The solid bar is the fossil range: the span between the oldest and the youngest fossil that palaeontologists have assigned to Nautilus pompilius. Above itBeside it, the bars count how many dated finds fall in each slice of time; the tallest bar is labelled, and heights use a square-root scale so that thin slices stay visible next to rich ones. Read this as how well each stretch of time is preserved and studied — thick bars mean plenty of the right kind of rock and plenty of collectors, which is related to, but not the same as, how common it actually was. The orange marker is the DNA clock: DNA accumulates mutations at a roughly steady rate, so comparing this species' DNA with its relatives estimates when the lineage split off — independently of any fossil. Where the DNA reaches further back than the oldest fossil, the gap is hatched: the ghost lineage. It means the lineage was already out there, but has left us nothing we have dug up yet.
How it livedPBDB
Record type22 706 records
Range
Depth
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Holding institutions14 of 39 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| Washington, US | 61 |
| Cambridge, US | 33 |
| DOI/NPS, Salem Maritime National Historic Sitelocation not on record | 31 |
| Philadelphia, US | 24 |
| Sydney, AU | 24 |
| Museums Victorialocation not on record | 21 |
| Provincia di Livornolocation not on record | 18 |
| CASlocation not on record | 14 |
| Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territorylocation not on record | 12 |
| National Museum of Natural Sciencelocation not on record | 11 |
| Natick, US | 9 |
| Auckland, NZ | 9 |
| Brussels, BE | 8 |
| Delaware Museum of Nature and Sciencelocation not on record | 7 |
| Denver, US | 6 |
| RBINS-Scientific Heritagelocation not on record | 6 |
| ELMClocation not on record | 6 |
| Chongqing Museumlocation not on record | 6 |
| Natural History Museum Rotterdamlocation not on record | 5 |
| Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallerylocation not on record | 3 |
| Western Australian Museumlocation not on record | 3 |
| Santa Barbara Museum of Natural Historylocation not on record | 3 |
| Toronto, CA | 2 |
| Stockholm, SE | 2 |
| Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural Historylocation not on record | 2 |
| National Museums of Kenyalocation not on record | 1 |
| Toyohashi Museum Of Natural Historylocation not on record | 1 |
| Paleontological Research Institutionlocation not on record | 1 |
| Saint John, CA | 1 |
| QVMAGlocation not on record | 1 |
| Australian Institute of Marine Sciencelocation not on record | 1 |
| South Kensington, GB | 1 |
| Museo Enrico Pirajno di Mandralisca | Enrico Pirajno di Mandralisca Museumlocation not on record | 1 |
| Wakayama Prefectural Museum of Natural Historylocation not on record | 1 |
| Natural History Museum of Utahlocation not on record | 1 |
| Salzburg, AT | 1 |
| Florida Museum of Natural History- Zoology, Paleontology & Paleobotanylocation not on record | 1 |
| Mutare Museumlocation not on record | 1 |
| Paris, FR | 1 |
Where the DNA of Nautilus pompilius was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Where its DNA was found
How strong is each trace?
Modelled climatemodelled
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.