- Joined
- Feb 24, 2004
- Messages
- 33
Nautilus deformation "black shell syndrome"
Good day all, a bit of information and more to come on the topic when I have my notes and images in front of me. The Nautilus seems to develop quite quickly in captivity this may be due a variety of factors. One of the many symptoms of captivity is the deformation of the shell "black shell syndrome.” I will post some images when I get the chance. These may be stress related due to water chemistry, lack of vertical migration (pressure change), food, light etc... The natural environment of the Nautilus is at mid depth on the reef shelf 200ft and below. Therefore, changes in shell development are to be expected but some of them are rather startling. The pathology report done at the National Zoo to one of the Nautilus which died a few years back as well as pathology on living specimens do not indicate infection or hosts as the result although there are host living opportunistically in the locality of the deformation. So the best guess is... environmental factors are at play causing abnormal shell development.
More to come
Regards
Carl
PS:if you want to find a wonderful text, Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, which includes three volumes on Cephalopods (only two available) try these sites locations
http://www.ku.edu/~paleo/treatise.html
http://rock.geosociety.org/bookstore/default.asp?oID=0&catID=13&rslID=2
http://rock.geosociety.org/bookstore/default.asp?oID=0&catID=13&pID=TREK
Good day all, a bit of information and more to come on the topic when I have my notes and images in front of me. The Nautilus seems to develop quite quickly in captivity this may be due a variety of factors. One of the many symptoms of captivity is the deformation of the shell "black shell syndrome.” I will post some images when I get the chance. These may be stress related due to water chemistry, lack of vertical migration (pressure change), food, light etc... The natural environment of the Nautilus is at mid depth on the reef shelf 200ft and below. Therefore, changes in shell development are to be expected but some of them are rather startling. The pathology report done at the National Zoo to one of the Nautilus which died a few years back as well as pathology on living specimens do not indicate infection or hosts as the result although there are host living opportunistically in the locality of the deformation. So the best guess is... environmental factors are at play causing abnormal shell development.
More to come
Regards
Carl
PS:if you want to find a wonderful text, Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, which includes three volumes on Cephalopods (only two available) try these sites locations
http://www.ku.edu/~paleo/treatise.html
http://rock.geosociety.org/bookstore/default.asp?oID=0&catID=13&rslID=2
http://rock.geosociety.org/bookstore/default.asp?oID=0&catID=13&pID=TREK