Biologist gets a rare second sighting of elusive nautilus

On a recent trip to the South Pacific, Peter Ward spotted a creature that hadn't been seen by scientists for more than 30 years. It was an Allonautilus Scrobiculatus -- a species of nautilus that's considered one of the rarest sea creatures in the world. Also, Ward was one of the biologists who last saw it three decades ago. Needless to say, it was an emotional reunion. For the human, anyway.  

"Nautiluses go back to the dawn of animal life," Ward tells As It Happens guest host Helen Mann.

"They're cephalopods, so you can think of a nautilus as a squid or an octopus, but one that is stuffed into a hard shell."

Ward attracted the nautilus with a mix of chicken and tuna. "They are superb at finding dead meat," he explains.

But when he finally caught the cephalopod, he had to move fast so the animal wouldn't die, as nautiluses are sensitive to temperature.

"To be honest, I felt like I should be feeling a great deal of emotion but what I was feeling was I've got about five minutes with this animal before the heat kills it...it was only later that the emotion took over."

Ward hopes that the shell samples he took from the nautilus will help him to trace the evolutionary history of the elusive creatures and show how closely they may be related to other cephalopods.

The research is invaluable as nautiluses are a species at risk. 

"I just certainly hope that it has a better fate than many of the creatures that we humans find so beautiful."