Wildlife

Rare Sea Creature Spotted In South Pacific

A type of a sea creature known as a nautilus, not seen for more than 30 years and thought perhaps extinct, has been spotted in the South Pacific, researchers say.

Nautiluses - small, distant relatives of cuttlefish and squid -- are ancient animals, sometimes referred to as "living fossils" because the creatures' distinctive spiral shells have been showing up in the fossil record for the last 500 million years.

The particular nautilus in question, Allonautilus scrobiculatus, was rediscovered in waters of Papua New Guinea's Ndrova Island by University of Washington biologists Peter Ward after originally discovering it in 1984.

Considered one of the rarest animals on Earth, it hasn't been seen since.