Nautilus

Searched as Nautilus planovolvis. The Paleobiology Database treats Nautilus as the accepted name.

Nautilus is a marine cephalopod genus in the mollusk family Nautilidae. Species in this genus differ significantly, morphologically, from the two nautilus species in the adjacent sister-taxon Allonautilus. The oldest fossils of the genus are known from the Late Eocene Hoko River Formation, in Washington State and from Late-Eocene to Early Oligocene sediments in Kazakhstan. The oldest fossils of the modern species Nautilus pompilius are from Early Pleistocene sediments off the coast of Luzon in the Philippines.

Nautilus

Uncredited · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
NautilidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Nautilidae
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Nautilidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Nautilidae
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
Environment
marinePBDB, for Cephalopoda

Time the record covers

At most 2.3 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 306 Mya and 303.7 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Carboniferous — about 3 of 3 occurrencesCarboniferous306–306 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences306–306 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences306–306 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences306–306 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences306–306 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences306–305 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences305–305 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences305–305 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences305–305 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences305–305 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences305–305 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences305–305 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences305–305 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences305–305 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences305–304 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences304–304 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences304–304 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences304–304 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences304–304 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences304–304 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences304–304 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences304–304 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences306.5 Mya303.2 Mya

3 occurrences of Nautilus on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

3 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

2 formations

Pottawatomie — 39.16°N, 94.48°WDouglas — 39.01°N, 95.25°W

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The named rock units Nautilus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Nautilus and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Nautilus and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

796 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 97 sites for Nautilus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

1 reference

Each of the 3 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Nautilus

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC0 Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itNautilidae through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758