The crew of the research vessel E/V Nautilus erupted in excited chatter as they watched live video from a remotely operated vehicle traversing the German Channel in the Pacific island state of Palau. “It’s finally happened!” someone could be heard saying as the camera on board the ROV Hercules zoomed in to reveal a lone deep-sea mollusk that shares the same name as the research vessel: a nautilus. Nautiluses are very rarely seen in the wild, and this was the first time one was spotted in the 15 years of the E/V Nautilus mission. Adding to the mystique, nautiluses are ancient animals, ancestors to modern cephalopods, the class containing octopuses and squids. They first appeared 38 million years ago but their evolution can be traced back almost 500 million years, to a time before life evolved to live on land. Nautiluses are often referred to as a “living fossil.” “It’s like watching a dinosaur,” someone says in the video, marveling at how the nautilus’s structure hasn’t changed in millions of years. Founded by renowned oceanographer Robert Ballard, the Ocean Exploration Trust (OET) operates the E/V Nautilus, which is equipped with ROVs for ocean exploration and a live video feed that can be viewed by researchers and the global public. OET communications lead Marley Parker wrote on the NautilusLive blog: “Dreams come true indeed. After more than 1,000 ROV dives all around the world, we are filming the beautiful animal that shares our name.” After the first one, the OET team…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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