Hi Ross,
You said intact specimen - does that mean the octopus was inside? Or was it an intact shell? Remember, this is the egg case made by a female octopus (a cephalopod, not a scaphopod) in which to guard her eggs. She dies when the eggs hatch and crawls out, and that's when the paper nautilus shell washes up on beaches.
Anyhow, it was a nice find!
Best regards,
Roland

>>> [log in to unmask] 09/13/01 05:29AM >>>
Just had to share this: an intact specimen of Argonauta argo was found
this summer in good old Nova Scotia - ok, on one of our fine, frigid
beaches.  To my knowledge, this is the first such report from anywhere
in Eastern Canada.  To think of this fragile floating home for
Scaphopods floating all those thousands of miles from the tropics, is
quite something!  Qestion: what other Northern Atlantic specimens are
known: has it been found in the Azores, Cape Verde Is., or Europe??  Has
it ever landed on the shores of Western Canada?  How often does it even
reach North America at all?

From the Great Paper North,
ross.