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Nautilus Behavior in Aquaria
Yoshiko KAKINUMA 1), Junzo TSUKAHARA 1) and Syozo HAYASAKA 2)

Abstract

Observations on behavior were conducted, using Nautilus pompilius from the Philippines and Fiji, and Nautilus
belauensis from Palau, kept at Kamoike Marine Park Aquarium. These studies on Nautilus include observations
or experiments on locomotion, predation, respiratory, rhythm, image recognition and coupling behaviour and show
its considerable ability to adapt to changes in the natural environment.

Introduction
Cephalopods such as squid and octopus have the biggest brains among invertebrate
animals. Their interesting behavior is in some cases well known: for example, sexual display in sepia, learning and territorial activities in octopus. But it is less easy to study the
behavior of Nautilus, a surviving tetranchiate cephalopod, its investigation here has justbegun, but specimens are rare.
Some attention has been paid to the vertical movement involved in Nautilus behavior
mechanism of ups and downs. The research group of paleontologists in Japan reported
long-term observations of Nautilus in an aquarium (JECOLN, 1980).
The present report is based on three experimental records: i) Observation of Nautilus
pompilius, captured near the Philippine Islands (Aug. Sep., 1981) and kept there in anexperimental water tank (HAYASAKA et al., 1982); ii) On Nautilus pompilius captured in
the Fiji area, in Fiji during Aug. Sep., 1984 (KAKINUMA and TSUKAHARA, 1985, 1986);
iii) Nautilus belauensis brought from Palau and kept for a long period at Kamoike Marine
Park in Kagoshima. Aquarium specimens ate frozen fish in small pieces from 8 to 12 gramsin average, and a maximum of 20 grams and some times small shrimps. Observations of
Nautilus activities were carried out using one tank. The predatory activity and breeding
behavior of captured Nautilus belauensis were already reported. (KAKINUMA et al., 1995a,
1995b)

1) Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Kagoshima University, 890 Japan
2) Institute of Earth Science, Faculty of Science, Kagoshima University, 890 Japan264

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Observations
1) Resting behavior in Aquaria
Four patterns of resting behavior were observed in aquaria:(1) Their adherence flotation of the tentacles to the wall or bottom of the tank.
(2) Their flotation on the water surface with shrinking tentacles and drift along in thestream flow.
(3) They float with swinging of the shell back and forth.
(4) They rest the shell on a stone or the glass wall at the bottom of the tank, with contraction of the tentacles.
These observations suggest that aquarium specimens show behavior similar to that of
Nautilus living in the sea. The variety of behavior patterns suggests that Nautilus adapts
quite well to short-term changes in the natural habitat.
2) Locomotion in Aquaria
Nautilus usually moves horizontally (forward backward) or vertically (ascend descend). In Nautilus captured in the Philippines and Fiji the following behaviors were observed:(1) Forward movement
Nautilus moves forward by extending its tentacles in front and directing its funnel backward. This type of movement is often observed in searching for prey before settling on asubstrate and before breeding activity.
(2) Backward movement
This is most often seen either in flight or in ordinary locomotion. The tentacles are
sometimes extended a little, the shell swings back and forth, and meanwhile the sea water
is jetted from the funnel and the Nautilus moves backward, also the tentacles usually contract. In aquaria Nautilus usually moves about one meter in five to eight seconds. A
Nautilus just after capture moved about two meters in three to five seconds (24 40 mmin.) in a water tank aboard the research vessel ship of the University of the South Pacific.
(3) Ascending movement
Nautilus adhering to the bottom of the tank detaches its tentacles swinging the shell. Thenit slowly ascends by jetting sea water downward.
(4) Descending movement
The Nautilus descends slowly by jetting the water upward from the funnel. Rapid downward (or upward) movements were not observed.
(5) Beside these movements, Nautilus crawls with the tentacles, attaching to the tank wall.
This was observed only when the animal was searching.
(6) The specimens on board the ship immediately after capture had rapid, direct motion andexhibited a variety of movements. It was astonishing to those accustomed to their slow
motions when living in an aquarium.
Fast forward and backward rotations were performed in response to horizontal rotation of

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360 degrees. There was a jumping reaction when the tentacles were touched by a foreign
substance. Movements included extending the tentacles and jetting strongly backward while
resting against coral, a crawl-like sliding movement using tentacles alternately, and searching movements at night, extending the tentacles twice as far as usual.
3) Diurnal Rhythm of Movements
For a Nautilus kept in natural lighting, captured two to five days before, there is nodifference in the level of activity in the night or daytime. But with time its periods ofactivity gradually become longer in the night than in the day and eventually there are peaks

daytimenighttime

Fig. 1. Nautilus’s diurnal changes of swimming activity(Philippines Nov. 7 8 and Dec. 29 30, 1981).

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South Pacific Study Vol. 17, No. 2, 1997of activity at dawn and in the evening (Fig. 1). At these peaks, swimming (for 4 to 15
minutes) and rest (for 10 to 20 minutes) are repeated alternately. This suggests some
diurnal rhythm.
The level of activity was measured by the number of the shell swings during one swimming period (30 min.). For Philippine female Nautilus, this reached 780 or 880 swings andfor males from 890 to 1010. The swimming period is also longest for males. The monthsof August and September, when the observation were made, were the breeding season for
Nautilus captured in the Philippines. But Nautilus captured in Fiji, whose genital glands
were still immature, showed low activity. From these observations, it seems that the numberof swings (or the length of swimming periods) is seasonal behavior which depends onmaturity.
In the environment, Nautilus was active and moved by swimming a long distances
quickly, or by flowing with a current. This suggests that Nautilus has potentially wide
distribution.
4) Predator Behavior
We monitored the reactions of a Nautilus adhering to the wall of the tank. A coral stone(about 20 cm diameter) was put in the center of the tank and a live shrimp (wet weight 812 g) was placed on it with a pair of tweezers. The Nautilus immediately left the glass,turned the axis of the body toward the shrimp, and rushed to the food. While swimming, it
picked up the shrimp with a tentacle, rolled it up to the mouth and ate it. The time taken
was from 2 seconds to 2 minutes. Another Nautilus took 15 minutes to eat a shrimp after
it was left on the stone. It is unknown whether the food is located by sight or smell.
Next, we put a small trap (40×30×30 cm) in the tank and observed the Nautilus behavior. This trap was made of black vinyl net with a entrance hole (10×12 cm) at each of its
four sides. These holes are designed so that Nautilus can get in or out. After the trap wasleft in the tank, and six Nautilus were kept inside the tank, outside the trap. One of the
Nautilus jumped up when it touched the net to about 10 cm distance. Rest of them were
swimming around and avoided the trap. Some adhered to the net for a couple of minutes(several times), but the others adhered only to the glass wall of the tank. None of thementered the trap.
In the second test, eight Nautilus kept without food from the previous day were put in thetank. All Nautilus adhered to the tank wall. A shrimp was then hung on a wire in the centerof the trap. As soon as the shrimp was given, all Nautilus turned to face the trap and approached to it within one to three minutes (Fig. 2). One of the Nautilus touched the trap
carefully. After searching outside the trap, it tried to catch the shrimp by extending andinserting its tentacles into the trap. When it failed to catch the food, it entered the trap after
searching the interior of the trap with its tentacles. It was still crawling quietly around inside
the trap even when it was close enough to the food to catch it. Then the Nautilus extended
one tentacle and rolled it up with the shrimp. After catching the food, it turned to the opposite hole by rotating body in a horizontal direction. Then it swam backward, shaking several

KAKINUMA et al : Nautilus Behavior in Aquaria

Fig. 2. A
B

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Before food was put in the trap.
The Nautilus then faced the food and swam to it.

times, and left the trap. Then further shrimps were given, and each time another Nautilus
showed the same searching and catching behavior. There was only one Nautilus which did
no searching but merely caught the food. The time taken to catch the food and finding their
way out of the trap ranged from 5 to 27 minutes. There was no difference between males
and females.
When a Nautilus enters the trap voluntarily it swims around calmly, and on leaving thetrap, it behaves as though it measures its size and the location of the exit. It moves smoothly
inside the trap and hardly touches the net. But if a Nautilus was forced to enter the trap inwhich the shrimp was hung, it became excited and swam backward and did not feed. If it
touched the net, it immediately moved away from it. Even when touching the shrimp, theNautilus never took it. It tried instead to leave the trap by swimming backward. After
getting out of the trap, it was excited and kept swimming for several minutes. Then it finallyadhered to the tank wall. During this state, the Nautilus contracted and lifted up its hood.

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Like squid and octopus, Nautilus perform quite complicated searching behavior before
predation. How do they recognize their surroundings? What is the role sight and smell in
predation? What part is played by memory?
We investigated the amount of the food consumed by the Philippine Nautilus kept in
Kamoike Marine Park From 28 September 1981 to 30 January 1982. Frozen small fish andCrustacea such as shrimps were eaten in amounts of 8 to 12 g per day or, at most 20 g.
Food was given once a day, but some did not eat. One of the four Nautilus died within threemonths. The amount of food consumed by the rest gradually decreased, and all had died byMarch 1982.
5) Respiratory movements
The respiratory movement of Nautilus are indicated by opening and closure of the frontolateral mantle openings. As shown in Table 1, for 16 Nautilus the frequency of these movements fluctuated between 15 and 98 per minute. The frequency was lowest when they were
floating on the surface with contracted tentacles or resting on a stone at the bottom. Whenthey adhered to the tank wall or crawled with tentacles, it increased. Respiratory movement
was the greatest during swimming. There was variation between individuals but not between males and females. Smaller individuals respire at higher frequency than large ones.

Table 1. Frequency of respiratory movements in relation to behavior.
Nautilus

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2696) Control of pupil diameter
The eye of Nautilus resembles a pin hole camera. Since there is no lens in the eye, it has
been said that Nautilus cannot recognize images of objects but can perceive the amplitudeof light. But we infer from the complicated searching and eating behaviors observed that,
Nautilus can recognize the shape of objects, perhaps visually. We investigated the reactionof the pupil to light. Using a Nautilus whose shell was 15 cm in length, measured thediameter of the pupil including the black pigment band around it by means of photographs.
We compared the changes of diameter with the intensity (Lux units) of light incident on the
pupil. The results were as follows: there is a decrease in diameter of 0.5 1 mm on lighting
a 300 W lamp, this was in daytime and in addition to a fluorescent lamp in the laboratory.
A young Fijian Nautilus, whose shell length was 7 cm and whose pupil diameter was
photographed at a depth of 180 meters had a pupil width of about 3 5 mm. Nautilus thus
appears to open and close its pupil according to stimulation by light. We do not know,
however, how light controls pupil diameter.
There was no effect with normal lighting, but when there was some shadow, due topeople moving around, some movement of the pupil was observed.
The eye of a Nautilus was removed and was cut open. There was greenish fluorescentmaterial inside the sack-like eyeball. This may suggest that Nautilus has the eye of nocturnal animal’s behavior.
7) Excretion after breeding
Nautilus captured and transferred to the aquarium ejected excreta a little later. A Nautilus
captured with fish as bait ejected a lump of blackish excreta after being transferred to thetank. This was seen in Philippine and Fijian Nautilus. The first lump of excreta of Fijian
Nautilus was a cylinder 5 mm in diameter and 5 cm in length. After examination it showedthat red small particles were mingled in the excreta. These corpuscles looked like a shrimp’s
under a microscope. The excreta consisted of a spiral bundle of thin threads of 1 mm diameter. There were various chitin shells like crustacea, mixed with plant fibers. There were also
136 light brown unicellular algal cells in the excreta, resembling coral zooxanthellae.
When a shrimp was given to a Nautilus in the tank, it excreted three days later. In anotherNautilus fish from bait were packed into the gullet but the first excreta discharged in thetank contained shrimps. Those shrimps were therefore taken in the open sea before trapping(as it is unlikely that the Nautilus ate shrimps incidentally got into the trap.) The excreta
also contained zooxanthellae, but it is not known if Nautilus eats corals or only animals
which feed on coral and do not digest the symbiotic algae. There seems to exist someconnection between the coral and Nautilus living in the reef.
When Nautilus behavior at night was observed, matter discharged appeared fluorescent.
Is this fluorescence due to bacteria or is it simply due to a food chain? Or are Nautilus
luminous animals like coral?

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Fig. 3. Chain formation in which five Philippine Nautilus are in the sequence male−female−male−female−male.

8) Chain formation and reproductive behavior
We observed the behavior of 12 Philippine Nautilus (six females and six males). Twoto three days after capture, all the Nautilus were kept in the same tank. Chain formation wasobserved often. The chain started with a Nautilus adhering to the glass wall. AnotherNautilus then adhered to the shell of the first and so on. The chain sometimes consisted offive individuals (Fig. 3). The chain formed between the middle of the tank wall and under
the water surface. For a longer chain it took 3 hours but a short chain took only from 2 to
6 minutes. Chain formation persisted for up to 8 hours. Couplings between a male and afemale mutually connected with each other were 80％ of the total. In the Philippine specimens copulation occurred often. But Fijian Nautilus, which were not in the breeding season,
showed no chain formation. We suggest that chain formation in reproductive behavior
which occurs in the breeding season.

Concluding Remarks
Freshly-collected Nautilus are capable of adapting themselves to new aquarium circumstances. Their fast, positive activity when captured implies that they possess quite complex
behavioral potential. This rapid behavior is not found in Nautilus in aquaria, which behave
slowly and appear passive. Their behavior depends on the interrelation between an advanced neural system, the muscular system and circulatory system, integrated according to
the animal’s physiology and structure. Behavior of Nautilus should be considered in theKAKINUMA et al : Nautilus Behavior in Aquaria

271

broad context of a long history of evolution. Judging from its adaptive behavior including
communication between individuals, Nautilus are able to respond effectively to changes inthe environment.

Summary
Behavior has been studied in Nautilus pompilius from the Philippines and Fiji, andNautilus belauensis from Palau, kept at Kamoike Marine Park aquarium.
Behavioral observations suggest that captured Nautilus shows the same behavior asanimals in the ocean. Some of the patterns observed were adhering to the wall or bottom of
the tank, floating to the top of the tank, floating with swinging of the shell back and forth,clinging to a stone or the glass wall at the bottom of the tank with shrinking tentacles.
Since there is no lens in the eye, it has been said that Nautilus can not recognize images
but can perceive different light. Fresh Nautilus are capable of adaptive pupil changes, andsudden movements of the Nautilus may be caused by a shadow reaction.
In case of predatory behavior, Nautilus like squid and octopus, performs quite complicated searching behavior before predation.
There is variation in respiratory behavior between individuals but not between male andfemale. Smaller individuals respire at higher frequency than large ones.
A young Fijian Nautilus, whose shell length was 7 cm and whose pupil diameter was
photographed at a depth of 180 m, had a pupil width of about 3 5 mm. Nautilus appears
to open and close its pupil according to the intensity of light but we do not know, however,
how light controls pupil diameter.
As for their excretory behavior, when a shrimp was given to a Nautilus in the tank, it
excreted three days later. The excreta also contained zooxanthellae, but it is not known if
Nautilus eats corals or only animals which feed on coral and do not digest the symbiotic
algae. There seems to exist some connection between the coral and Nautilus which live inthe reef.
There is chain formation during breeding season. Couplings between a male and a female
mutually connected with each other were 80％ of the total. In the Philippine specimens
copulation occurred often. But Fijian Nautilus, which were not in the breeding season,
showed no chain formation. We suggest that chain formation is reproductive behavior
which occurs in the breeding season.

Acknowledgment
We thank Dr. Elaine Robson, School of Animal and Microbial Sciences, The Universityof Reading, for reading and making critical comments on this manuscript.

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(Accepted 24 February, 1997)