Any of at least three historic submarines. Robert Fulton built one of the earliest submersible craft in 1800 in France; his Nautilus had a collapsible mast and sail for surface propulsion and a hand-turned propeller for power. Andrew Campbell and James Ash of Britain built a Nautilus submarine driven by battery-powered electric motors in 1886. The name was also chosen for the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, launched by the U.S. Navy in 1954. Capable of longer submersion than any previous submarine, it made a historic trip under the ice cap of the North Pole from Point Barrow, Alaska, to the Greenland Sea in 1958. Either of two genera of cephalopods. The pearly, or chambered, nautilus (genus Nautilus) lives in the outermost chamber of its smooth, coiled, usually 36-chambered shell, about 10 in. (25 cm) in diameter. A connecting tube adjusts the gases in the chambers, allowing the shell to act as a float. Nautiluses search the ocean bottom for shrimp or other prey, which they capture with up to 94 small, suckerless, contractile tentacles. The paper nautilus (genus Argonauta) feeds on plankton near the surface of tropical and subtropical seas. The female resembles an octopus but has a thin, unchambered, coiled shell, 12-16 in. (30-40 cm) in diameter. The much smaller male has no shell
The shell is spiral, symmetrical, and chambered, or divided into several cavities by simple curved partitions, which are traversed and connected together by a continuous and nearly central tube or siphuncle
A marine mollusc, of the family Argonautidae native to the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean, which has tentacles and a spiral shell with a series of air-filled chambers