Finding Nautilus: Rare 'Living Fossil' Species Sighted In Pacific After 30 Years

A biologist and his object of study had a rare union at 1,200 feet depth in southern Pacific this July after nearly 30 years.

NBC News reports the sighting of Allonautilus scrobiculatus, a species of nautilus, by biologist Peter Ward and his colleagues. Ward had first sighted nautilus in 1984 but has not seen it in three decades. The species is different from other species of nautilus due to its slimy covering on the shell. Nautiluses are often living fossils as organisms similar to them are found in the fossil record dating to 500 million years.

To spot them, Ward and his team lowered bait on a stick into the ocean and recorded encounters off of Ndrova Island in Papua New Guinea. After several attempts they sighted two Allonautilus fight for the bait before a sunfish entered the fray. The team also scooped a few specimens and brought them to surface for study.

"Before this, two humans had seen Allonautilus scrobiculatus. My colleague Bruce Saunders from Bryn Mawr College found Allonautilus first, and I saw them a few weeks later," Ward said in a press release.

The biologist cautioned that Nautiluses mining for shells has greatly reduced their population, threatening them with extinction. Nautilus is extremely sensitive to ocean depths and two species could vary genetically. If a species is gone from a particular area, it is gone for good, the researchers said.

Ward hopes to study Allonautilus given that it is a relatively new species in the nautilus family. However finding specimens is not easy, he admits.

"It's only near this tiny island. This could be the rarest animal in the world. We need to know if Allonautilus is anywhere else, and we won't know until we go out there and look," he said.