QUICK FACTS
Name: Scaly-foot snail (Chrysomallon squamiferum)
Where it lives: Hydrothermal vents on the seafloor of the Indian Ocean
What it eats: As an adult, it doesn't! All of the snail's nutrition is generated internally, by endosymbiotic bacteria — microbes that live in the snail's gut.
The scaly-foot snail, or volcano snail, possesses something unique among gastropods: a coat of protective armor covering its foot, made from hundreds of overlapping iron-infused scales. It fortifies these scales with minerals absorbed from the hot liquid spewed by hydrothermal vents and black smoker chimneys at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, where water can reach temperatures of 752 degrees Fahrenheit (400 degrees Celsius).
