animal of the week!

I had, somehow, not been previously aware of Chrysomallon squamiferum, "commonly known as the scaly-foot gastropod, scaly-foot snail, or sea pangolin"

Highlights include:

• lives up to ~3 km below sea level!
  
• at hydrothermal vents, of Riftia pachyptila fame (GNU TERRY PRATCHETT)!!
  
• its shell is MADE OUT OF IRON (sulphides)!!!
  
• and it looks -- at least in some of its instantiations -- exactly the way you'd like a volcano snail to look.