Paper Nautilus or Argonaut (Argonauta argo), female emits ink as it jets away, family Argonautidae, order Octopoda, Bali, Indonesia

Introduction Argonauta, also known as the paper nautilus, is a fascinating genus of pelagic octopods belonging to the family Argonautidae. Often mistaken for the true nautilus (a shelled cephalopod), the Argonauta is unique for the intricate, delicate, paper-thin shell that the female secretes and uses to house her eggs and potentially for buoyancy and respiration. This article will delve into…

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Cover illustration by Lima de Freitas

Also known as a Paper Nautilus.

The largest species in a family of pelagic octopi, best known for the papery shell they secrete to protect their eggs, and the belief that they used it as a boat and their flattened arms as sails.

Argonauts surrounding the Nautilus, in Jules Verne's novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas

Found bobbing around tropical and subtropical oceans worldwide, where they're thought to prey on other pelagic molluscs, and possibly on larger jellyfish by chewing holes into their gastric cavity and stealing food.

Males (only discovered in the 19th century) reach sexual maturity at a mantle length of 8mm. Females start egglaying when they reach 14–15 mm, but they start producing the eggcase at half that size. A small A. argo in an 88mm long eggcase might be carrying 48,800 embryos. Females grow to 100mm mantle length, while males don't exceed 20.

The males lack the dorsal tentacles used by the females to create their eggcases, but do use a modified arm called a hectocotylus to impregnate the females, which he inserts into her mantle cavity, and then detaches. It was originally described as a parasitic worm.

Argonauts are occasionally mass-stranded on Southern African and Southern Australian beaches, but the eggcases are fragile and rarely recovered intact.

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