nautilus: Quick Facts

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Facts

Also Known As	nautili • nautiluses

Photos

Chambered nautilus (Nautilus pompilius) with a spiral, brown-banded shell and visible tentacles resting on a bed of pebbles against a greenish background.

chambered nautilus

A nautilus mollusk with a spiral, brown-and-white striped shell and numerous white tentacles extending from its soft body, set against a dark background.

chambered nautilus shell

A vertical diagram shows five stages in the evolution of eye complexity in mollusks, from simple pigment spot and pigment cup eyes in Patella and Pleurotomaria, to a pinhole-lens eye in Nautilus, an eye with a primitive lens in Murex, and a complex camera-type eye in octopus and squid, with labeled structures such as epithelium, photoreceptor layer, optic nerve, retina, lens, cornea, and iris.

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