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that a tremendous diversity of living
Nautilus
species existed. But one nag-
ging problem remained: In the three species from which soft parts as well as
hard parts were known,
the soft parts were absolutely identical in anatomy.
And
on the basis of the great variability in mature shell size, shell ornament, and
shell geometry among the various "species" observed by Saunders and my-
self, it seemed doubtful that all of these denned nautilus species could be
valid.
Clearly, we needed more information not just from the hard parts, but
from all anatomical characters, of the living
Nautilus
species. It was thus im-
perative to capture living specimens—and especially those forms from which
no soft-part anatomy was yet known. Of all of the "species" denned only by
shells, we were most interested in observing a living "King Nautilus," N.
scrobiculatus.
Unlike the other
Nautilus
"species," which differ only slightly
in shell shape, this latter has a shell radically different from any other nau-
tilus. For instance, its coiling configuration is such that it has a very large,
central depression in the shell (the umbilicus). It also exhibits a square
(rather than rounded) cross section and a peculiar, cross-hatch shell sculp-
ture unique among living nautiloids. Yet in spite of hundreds of its shells
having been found, no living specimen—and thus no example of its soft
parts—was known. Only a single tantalizing clue existed: At the turn of the
last century, an English zoologist named Arthur Willey had found a rotting
carcass within the shell of a beach-stranded N.
scrobiculatus
on a remote
New Guinea beach. The soft parts appeared quite distinct from those typical
of any of the other living
Nautilus
"species." But the advanced state of de-
composition precluded obtaining any definitive answer. It would be more
than 80 years (and several generations of cephalopod specialists later) before
this most enigmatic of living nautiloids was finally seen alive.
The finding of the coelacanth, thought to have been extinct for over
100 million years at the time of its capture, surely ranks as the foremost dis-
covery of a living fossil in this century, and the recovery soon thereafter of a
small mollusk named
Neopilina
(considered to have been extinct since the
Paleozoic Eta) was exciting as well. But a third discovery, the first capture of
a living
Nautilus scrobiculatus
by Bruce Saunders, must be reckoned with
