Rare nautilus sighted for the first time in three decades by the College’s Peter Ward

Nautilus pompilius swimming above a rare Allonautilus scrobiculatus off the coast of Ndrova Island in Papua New Guinea. — *Nautilus pompilius* swimming above a rare *Allonautilus scrobiculatus* off the coast of Ndrova Island in Papua New Guinea.

In early August, biologist Peter Ward returned from the South Pacific with news that he had encountered an old friend, one he hadn’t seen in three decades. A professor with the College of the Environment’s Earth & Space Sciences and the College of Arts and Sciences‘ Department of Biology, Ward had seen what he considers one of the world’s rarest animals: Allonautilus scrobiculatus.

In 1984, Ward and a colleague discovered the species of nautilus off of Ndrova Island in Papua New Guinea. Small, distant cousins of squid and cuttlefish, Nautiluses are an ancient lineage of animal often christened a “living fossil” because their distinctive shells appear in the fossil record over a 500 million year period. Ward says this recent sighting of Allonautilus indicates that there is still much to learn about these creatures.