Noury's Argonaut

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Noury's Argonaut

Eggcase of Argonauta nouryi

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Cephalopoda
Order:	Octopoda
Family:	Argonautidae
Genus:	Argonauta
Species:	A. nouryi

Binomial name

Argonauta nouryi
Lorois, 1852

Synonyms

Argonauta gruneri
Dunker, 1852

Noury's Argonaut (Argonauta nouryi) is a species of pelagic octopus. The female of the species, like all argonauts, creates a paper-thin eggcase that coils around the octopus much like the way a nautilus lives in its shell (hence the name paper nautilus). The shell is usually approximately 80 mm in length, although it can exceed 90 mm in exceptional specimens; the world record size is 95.5 mm.^[1]

A. nouryi is best known from the waters off the western coast of North America, from Panama to Baja California, but it has also been reported from the south west Pacific, as far away as the Coral Sea. It is considered one of the rarest of the Argonauta species. This, combined with the aesthetically pleasing elongated nature of the shell, make A. nouryi one of the most sought after Argonaut species by conchologists.

The type specimen of A. nouryi was collected near the Marquesas Islands. The type repository is unknown.^[2]

[edit] References

^ Pisor, D. L. (2005). Registry of World Record Size Shells, 4th edition, Snail's Pace Productions and ConchBooks, p. 12.
^ Current Classification of Recent Cephalopoda