Recent Examples on the WebThe state of cephalopod science has prompted the United States National Institutes of Health to consider whether these animals—which also include squid, cuttlefish, and nautiluses—deserve the same research protections as vertebrates.—Emily Mullin, WIRED, 6 Oct. 2023 Some other living fossils include the coelacanth, the horseshoe crab, and the nautilus.—Joseph Castro, Discover Magazine, 17 Aug. 2011 As a result, the nautilus can dive far deeper than the argonaut, to a depth of 750 metres.—Ed Yong, Discover Magazine, 18 May 2010 The new species also had several key anatomical traits that mark it as a vampyropod, including the loss of a chambered cephalopod shell used to regulate buoyancy, called a phragmocone, which is seen in existing creatures like nautilus.—Ashley Strickland, CNN, 8 Mar. 2022 This spiral fossil comes from the shell of an ammonite, an extinct animal related to a modern nautilus.—Discover Magazine, 13 Nov. 2013 After an extraordinary proliferation in earlier seas, totaling some 10,000 species throughout history, only seven species of nautilus made it into the modern era.—Cody Cottier, Discover Magazine, 11 Nov. 2021 This cluster of intelligent sea creatures including octopus, squid and shelled nautilus, possess a plethora of arms (in some species, as many as 90).—Sam Walters, Discover Magazine, 23 June 2022 Along with the armored fish, reef-builders like corals and sponges died en masse, as did trilobites, nautilus-like goniatites and many more creatures.—Cody Cottier, Discover Magazine, 23 Jan. 2021
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'nautilus.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
New Latin, from Latin, paper nautilus, from Greek nautilos, literally, sailor, from naus ship
: any of a genus of mollusks of the South Pacific and Indian oceans that are cephalopods and have a spiral chambered shell that is pearly on the inside
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