During a recent trip to Papua New Guinea in the South Pacific, Peter Ward, biologist from the University of Washington spotted one of the very uncommon species of nautilus.

Researchers have been in search of rare animal Allonautilus scrobiculatus, a species of nautilus, since long for its rarity. Nautiluses are often called ‘living fossils’ because they are well known for their unique shells. They used to exist more than 500 million years ago, which means even before the dinosaurs’ era.

The nautilus was spotted for the first time in 1984 by Ward and his fellow, Bruce Saunders, from Bryn Mawr College. Anybody can differentiate and identify the nautilus with different gills, jaws, and shells as they are different from other nautilus species.

This species have thick, hairy shell, which can be notices even from far. It is found to be very sensitive to the environment. These animals don’t face any difficulty in living even in very deep water levels and high temperature of water also has no effect on them.

In the past, illegal fishing and mining came into being due to the survival of this species in water. As per the researchers, this was one major reason for this animal’s extinction.

Ward said, “Before this, two people had seen Allonautilus scrobiculatus. My colleague Bruce Saunders from Bryn Mawr College found Allonautilus first, and I saw them a few weeks later”.

In order to carry out a research over them, Ward collected samples of the species from the spot. When he spotted the nautilus, two of them were fighting for getting the access to the bait.