Nautilus

From the Greek word meaning sailor this Nautilus is a pelagic marine mollusk. Pelegic from the Greek meaning 'open sea' means that it lives in the pelagic zone in open water at an average depth of about 3.5 km.

One of the first rules of diving is, 'don't touch anything' - not just for your own safety but also in order not to disturb the environment and habitat the creatures live in. Even empty shells on the beach could be a home for some creature and are best left alone However when in Florida there are tons of them just washed up on the shore and it is par for the course that you go 'shelling'.

This particular shell we bought many years ago while in Florida on St Pete's beach at a specialist shell exhibition sale. Every shell, and there were hundreds, all itemised and catalogued. I never thought too closely at the time about buying this - I would now. It was caught in Noumea, New Caledonia at a depth of between " 100-200 feet in waters outside of the reef at night in 1995"

The animal itself has 2 pairs of gills and up to 90 tentacles with no suckers but ridges with 9 teeth. It uses jet propulsion smelling it's prey as it only has a pinhole eye. The female lays eggs, attaches them to a rock and they hatch out 8-12 months later which seems to me an incredible length of time.
These are now considered living fossils.

The sand is some brought home from the Maldives in a small Pepsi bottle and is the whitest and softest ever!

At least thinking about past holidays has taken my mind (..ish) off the multitudinous number of disasters that seem to have befallen both of us today and I can put my hand on my heart and say it has probably been the worst most challenging day this year! Hence my indoor blip! However tomorrow is another day and the old blood pressure will have dropped considerably. A glass of wine is in order and I did spot a bag of Christmas maltesers......

Happy blipping :)