Thomas M. Iliffe. 1982. Argonaut: Octopus in a parchment shell. Sea Frontiers, 28: 224-228.
Housed in a delicate shell, the argonaut, or paper nautilus, lives
in warm, open-ocean waters around the world. It is seldom studied,
however, since it rarely washes ashore alive. In March 1980, the
author was fortunate to find a live female argonaut (Argonauta
argo) stranded on a beach in Bermuda. The female argonaut is the
only modern octopus to possess an external shell-like covering.
This structure, which is actually a modified egg case, serves as a
sea-going brood chamber in which the female hangs thousands of
tiny eggs.
Thomas M. Iliffe, Department of Marine
Biology, Texas A&M University at Galveston, P.O. Box 1675, Galveston, Texas 77553, USA.
E-mail: iliffet@tamug.edu
Keywords: Argonaut; octopus; Argonauta; Bermuda
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