Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T08:09:01.901Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the buoyancy of the pearly nautilus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2009

E. J. Denton  and
J. B. Gilpin-Brown
E. J. Denton
Affiliation:
The Plymouth Laboratory and the Department of Zoology, the University of Auckland, New Zealand
J. B. Gilpin-Brown
Affiliation:
The Plymouth Laboratory and the Department of Zoology, the University of Auckland, New Zealand
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Nautilus macromphalus Sowerby when freshly caught was close to neutral buoyancy having a weight in sea water of about 0–2% of its weight in air. The animals without their shells varied considerably in density but the volume of the shell was an approximately constant fraction of the total volume of the whole animal and whole animals were brought approximately to the same density by havingmore or less liquid inside the chambers of the shell. About 80 % of the gas space in the shell was used to support the weight of the shell itself in sea water.In an adult animal the centre of buoyancy was found to be about 6 mm above the centre of gravity, which made the animal very stable in its natural swimming position, a couple of about 350 g. cm being required to turn it through 90°. The pearly partsof the chamber walls were impermeable to sea water but the chalky and horny siphuncular tubes joining the septal necks were very porous. The most newly formed tenor so chambers were the only ones to contain liquids in appreciable volume and theydid this in diminishing amounts from the newest to the oldest. The watery liquids found within the chambers were always hypotonic to sea water and sometimes markedly so; they contained principally sodium and chloride ions. One animal was in the process of forming a new chamber, this incomplete chamber was completely full of liquidwith an osmolarity close to that of sea water but differing in composition from seawater.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , October 1966 , pp. 723 - 759
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 1966

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abolins-Krogis, A. 1962. The histochemistry of the mantle of Helix pomatia (L.) inrelation to the repair of the damaged shell. Ark. Zool., Vol. 15, pp. 461–74.Google Scholar
Appellof, A. 1893. Die Schalen von Sepia, Spirula und Nautilus. K. svenska VetenskAkad. Handl., Bd. 25, No. 7,106 pp.Google Scholar
Bidder, A. M. 1962. Use of the tentacles, swimming and buoyancy control in the pearly Nautilus. Nature, Lond., Vol. 196, pp. 451–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buckland, W. 1837. Geology and Mineralogy Considered with Reference to Natural History, Vol. 1, 618 pp. London: William Pickering.Google Scholar
Conway, E. J. 1940. Micro-Diffusion Analysis and Volumetric Error, 306 pp. New York: van Nostrand.Google Scholar
Denton, E. J. 1961. The buoyancy offish and cephalopods. Progr. Biophys., Vol. II, pp. 177–234.Google Scholar
Denton, E. J. & Gilpin-Brown, J. B. 1961a. The buoyancy of the cuttlefish Sepiaofficinalis (L). J. mar. biol. Ass. U.K., Vol. 41, pp. 319–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denton, E. J. & Gilpin-Brown, J. B. 1961b. The effect of light on the buoyancyof the cuttlefish. J. mar. biol. Ass. U.K., Vol. 41, pp. 343–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denton, E. J. & Gilpin-Brown, J. B. 1961c. The distribution of gas and liquid within the cuttlebone. J. mar. biol. Ass. U.K., Vol. 41, pp. 365–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denton, E. J. & Gilpin-Brown, J. B. 1963. Onthe buoyancy of the pearly Nautilus. J. Physiol., Lond., Vol. 168, pp. 44–5.Google Scholar
Denton, E. J.Gilpin-Brown, J. B. & Howarth, J. V. 1961. The osmotic mechanism of the cuttlebone. J. mar. biol. Ass. U.K., Vol. 41, pp. 351–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denton, E. J. & Taylor, D. W. 1964. The composition of gas in the chambers of the cuttlebone of Sepia officinalis. J. mar. biol. Ass. U.K. Vol. 44, pp. 203–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derham, W. 1726. Philosophical Experiments and Observations of the late Eminent DrRobert Hooke, S.R.S., 391 pp. London: W. Derham.Google Scholar
Flower, R. H. 1964. Nautiloid shell morphology. N. Mex. Inst. Min. and Tech., State Bur. Mines and Mineral Res. Memoir 13, 79pp.Google Scholar
Gregoire, C 1962. On submicroscopic structure of the Nautilus shell. Bull. Inst.r. Sci. nat. Belg., Vol. 38, 71 pp.Google Scholar
Griffin, L. E. 1900. The anatomy of Nautilus pompilius. Mem. natn. Acad. Sci., Vol. 8, pp. 103–97.Google Scholar
Haller, B. 1895. Beitrage zur Kenntnis der Morphologie von Nautilus pompilius. Denkschr. med.-naturw. Ges. Jena, Vol. 8, pp. 189–204 (also in Semon Forschungsreisen Australien u. malayischen Archipel. Vol. 5).Google Scholar
Holmes, O. W. 1893. The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table and The Professor at the Breakfast Table, 483 pp. London: Chatto and Windus.Google Scholar
Hoyle, W. E. 1886. Report on the Cephalopoda collected by H.M.S. Challenger duringthe years 1873–76. Challenger Rep. Zooh, Vol. 16, 245 pp.Google Scholar
Hubendick, B. 1958. On the molluscan adhesive epithelium. Ark. Zooh, Vol. 11, pp. 31–6.Google Scholar
Krogh, A. 1919. The rate of diffusion of gases through animal tissues, with some remarks on the coefficient of invasion. J. Physiol., Lond., Vol. 52, pp. 391–408.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moynier De Villepoix, R. 1892. Recherches sur la formation et Faccroissement de lacoquille des Mollusques. J. Anat. Physiol., Paris, Vol. 28, 461 pp.Google Scholar
Mutvei, H. 1964. On the shells of Nautilus and Spirula with notes on the shell secretion in non-cephalopod molluscs. Ark. zool., Vol. 16, pp. 221–78.Google Scholar
Owen, R. 1832. Memoir on the Pearly Nautilus {Nautilus pompilius). 68 pp. London: Council of the Royal College of Surgeons.Google Scholar
Pruvot-Fol, A. 1937. Remarques sur le Nautile. Extrait des Comptes Rendus du XII' Congrès International de Zoölogie Lisbonne (1935), pp. 1652–63.Google Scholar
Richards, A. G. 1951. The Integument of Arthropods.411pp. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rumphius, G. E. 1705. D'Ambomische Rariteitskamer. Amsterdam. Cited by A. Willey, (1896a).Google Scholar
Stenzel, H. B. 1957. Nautilus. Annotated bibliography inTreatise on Marine Ecology and Paleoecology, Vol. 1, Ecology, ed. J. W. Hedgpeth. Mem. geol. Soc. Am., Vol. 67, 1296 pp.Google Scholar
Thompson, D'Arcy W. 1942. On Growth and Form. 1116 pp. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Willey, A. 1896a. Letters from New Guinea on Nautilus and some other organisms. Q. Jl microsc. Sci., Vol. 39, pp. 145–80.Google Scholar
Willey, A. 1896ft. Zoological observations in the South Pacific. Q. Jl microsc. Set., Vol. 39, pp. 219–31.Google Scholar
Willey, A. 1902. Contribution to the Natural History of the Pearly Nautilus: A. Willey's Zoological Results, pt. 6, pp. 691–830. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wittenberg, J. B. 1958. The secretion of inert gas into the swimbladder of fish. J. gen. Physiol, Vol. 41, pp. 783–804.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yagi, T. 1960. On the growth of the shell in Sepia esculenta Hoyle caught in Tokyo Bay. Bull. Jap. Soc. scient. Fish., Vol. 26, pp. 646–52.Google Scholar
Yonge, C. M. 1953. Form and habit in Pinna cornea Gmelin. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. (B), Vol. 237, PP 335–74.Google Scholar