The Chambered Nautilus Shell Slice

This slice of a shell in the collections behind the scenes at Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History reveals the chambers of an animal sometimes known as the chambered nautilus. A cephalopod mollusk like the octopus, squid, and cuttlefish, the nautilus is easily distinguished from these relatives by its hard outer shell.

The animal develops chambers in the shell that progress in size as its body grows. The old chambers remain useful to the nautilus as storage tanks for water and air to maintain its buoyancy in the water column. This specimen comes from an individual in the genus Nautilus. It’s among millions of marine invertebrate specimens preserved in the Museum’s collections, and is shown here in the hands of Associate Curator of Invertebrate Zoology Vanessa Delnavaz, MA.