argonaut

Image of female Argonaut. Photo from Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, taken by Gary Florin. Photo by: Brittany Murray / Staff Photographer Daily Breeze   A rarely seen species of octopus was found this week by fisherman off the coast of San Pedro, California. The baseball-sized female Argonaut (aka: paper nautilus), pictured in the image above, normally lives in tropical and subtropical waters. She is now making a new home in the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro. Not much is known about this mysterious species since they are difficult to maintain in captivity.   They are unusual among…

If for no other reason, I love the American Museum of Natural History because it contains a web of seemingly endless nooks and crannies to explore. One, just far enough away from the main exhibit halls to go unnoticed by most visitors (it is not even denoted on the museum map anymore), is a collection of seashells from a time when neatly-arrayed collections of specimens set in place next to their identification labels formed the core of natural history museums. Most are relatively familiar, curled houses without their occupants, but there is one which immediately grabbed my attention the…