The 'living fossil' Nautilus pompilius is thought to use olfaction as its primary sensory system during foraging, yet neither the organs responsible for olfaction nor the mechanisms or behaviors associated with odor tracking have been subjected to experimentation. Flume testing under dark conditions revealed that Nautilus could consistently detect and follow turbulent odor plumes to the source ...

Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous (Late Volgian-latest Ryazanian) rhynchonellate brachiopods are described from eight out of 15 hydrocarbon seep deposits in the Slottsmøya Member of the Agardhfjellet Formation in the Janusfjellet to Knorringfjellet area, central Spitsbergen, Svalbard. The fauna comprises rhynchonellides, terebratulides (terebratuloids and loboidothyridoids) and a terebratellidine....

Nacre, or mother-of-pearl, the tough, iridescent biomineral lining the inner side of some mollusk shells, has alternating biogenic aragonite (calcium carbonate, CaCO(3)) tablet layers and organic sheets. Nacre has been common in the shells of mollusks since the Ordovician (450 million years ago) and is abundant and well-preserved in the fossil record, e.g., in ammonites. Therefore, if any measu...