Like a tiny submarine, the chambered nautilus speeds through the ocean on little jets that it creates by sucking in water and spitting it out.
However, as ways of movement go, jet propulsion is not usually a very good use of energy. In the ocean’s depths where oxygen gets thin, the nautilus seems to be putting itself at risk by expending so much effort on movement. Fish use far less energy by pushing at the water with their fins. So how does it manage to jet around unscathed in the ocean’s depths?
Graham Askew, a biomechanics professor at the University of Leeds, set out with a graduate student, Thomas Neil, to understand better how this shellfish moves. They found that the nautilus is actually a highly efficient jet-propelled creature, wasting much less energy than marine organisms like squid or jellyfish that get around in a similar way.
